<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <!--Converted with LaTeX2HTML 98.1p1 release (March 2nd, 1998) originally by Nikos Drakos (nikos@cbl.leeds.ac.uk), CBLU, University of Leeds * revised and updated by: Marcus Hennecke, Ross Moore, Herb Swan * with significant contributions from: Jens Lippmann, Marek Rouchal, Martin Wilck and others --> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Data Format Compatibility</TITLE> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="Data Format Compatibility"> <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="vol1"> <META NAME="resource-type" CONTENT="document"> <META NAME="distribution" CONTENT="global"> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <LINK REL="STYLESHEET" HREF="vol1.css"> <LINK REL="previous" HREF="node207.html"> <LINK REL="up" HREF="node198.html"> <LINK REL="next" HREF="node210.html"> </HEAD> <BODY > <!--Navigation Panel--> <A NAME="tex2html3225" HREF="node210.html"> <IMG WIDTH="37" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="next" SRC="icons.gif/next_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html3221" HREF="node198.html"> <IMG WIDTH="26" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="up" SRC="icons.gif/up_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html3217" HREF="node208.html"> <IMG WIDTH="63" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="previous" SRC="icons.gif/previous_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html3223" HREF="node1.html"> <IMG WIDTH="65" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="contents" SRC="icons.gif/contents_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html3224" HREF="node216.html"> <IMG WIDTH="43" HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="index" SRC="icons.gif/index_motif.gif"></A> <BR> <B> Next:</B> <A NAME="tex2html3226" HREF="node210.html">Release Notes</A> <B> Up:</B> <A NAME="tex2html3222" HREF="node198.html">Site Specific Implementation</A> <B> Previous:</B> <A NAME="tex2html3218" HREF="node208.html">Login Procedures</A> <BR> <BR> <!--End of Navigation Panel--> <H1><A NAME="SECTION001730000000000000000"> </A> <A NAME="data-format-compatibility"> </A> <BR> Data Format Compatibility </H1> The internal binary data formats of the VAX and SUN systems are different which makes it impossible to share data files (<I>e.g.</I> image or table). The SUN systems store data starting with the most significant bits (<I>i.e.</I> big endian) and use IEEE floating point format while VAX's are byte swapped and have a proprietary floating point format. <P> In order to exchange data files between these systems it is necessary to use a machine independent format <I>e.g.</I> FITS. For this reason and because internal MIDAS data structures may change, it is <B>strongly</B> recommended to save data in FITS format. <P> <P> =31 =3 =1999 <P> <BR><HR> <ADDRESS> <I>Petra Nass</I> <BR><I>1999-06-09</I> </ADDRESS> </BODY> </HTML>