Michael Engel <engel@informatik.uni-siegen.de> said;

> The big-endian RM-series firmware
> looks quite similar to SGI-style firmware IIRC. At least older versions 
> of it could only boot ECOFF files.
>
> You could flash RM200s and RM400s with little-endian ARC-compliant
> firmware in order to boot NT. The early RM200 Linux ports required
> little-endian operation.

Ding.wav  

So, BE for UNIX, LE for NT.  It's a quite similar circumstance of MIPSco
R4000 Magnum.   I believe the BE firmware is a kind of MIPSco derivative
which is also found in pre-ARC SGI hardwares.

I think it's quite doubtful that LE UNIX for MIPS hardware ever existed.
The only exception is ULTRIX-RISC.

Toru Nishimura/ALKYL Technology