Systems based on Fairchild 9440 / 9445

I'm pretty sure you could get a PERQ 2T4 to behave like that if you were crazy enough about writing the microcode... The standard PERQ has 20 bit processor registers and 16 bit memory (at least as seen by the processor). You can read 'MDI' (Memory Data Input) which transfers the memory word into the low 16 bits of the CPU data path, or 'MDX' (Memory Data eXtended) which reads the bottom 4 bits of the memory into the top 4 bits of the data path (that is, bits 19..16). Now, the very ratre T4 has a 24 bit processor. I assume on that machine MDX reads the low byte of the memory into the top 8 bits (23...16) of the data path. Now, whether anyone wants to try wring an instruction set that makes it middle-endian is another matter... -tony