It is widely assumed that Swift was either alluding to the historic War of the Roses or – more likely – parodying through oversimplification the religious discord in England and Scotland brought about by the conflicts between the Roman Catholics (Big Endians) on the one side and the Anglicans and Presbyterians (Little Endians) on the other.
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Other well-known little-endian processor architectures are the 6502 (including 65802, 65C816), Z80 (including Z180, eZ80 etc.), MCS-48, 8051, DEC Alpha, Altera Nios II, Atmel AVR, VAX, and, largely, PDP-11.