In a 32-bit word environment such as that of Visual Fortran, it might seem as though there should be no problems with data storage, since all data types are consecutive subcomponents (bytes) of a word or are consecutive, multiple words. However, when transporting binary data among disparate systems -- either by intermediate storage medium (disk, tape) or by direct connection (serial port, network) -- problems arise from different definitions of serial bit and serial byte order. For simplicity, the following discussion considers only byte order within a word, since that is the usual case of difficulty. (For more information, refer to "On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace" by Danny Cohen, IEEE Computer, vol. 14, pp. 48-54, 1981.)
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