big-endian

Storing the most significant byte of a multibyte number at a lower address than the least significant byte; that is, "big end" first.

Most big Unix machines are big-endian, but Intel x86 machines and older Digital machines are little-endian.

Transmitting the most significant byte of a multibyte number before transmitting the least significant byte; that is, "big end" first.

The network octet order for all protocols in the TCP/IP protocol suite is big-endian. A big-endian computer system need not perform any conversion in building TCP/IP protocol headers from integers stored in its memory.