On a workstation that has Intel hardware architecture, binary integers are held in a form that is byte reversed when compared to the form in which they are held on the mainframe.
The mainframe representation is known as big-endian: the most significant digit of the number is stored at the lowest address. The Intel representation is known as little-endian: the least significant digit of the number is stored at the lowest address.
For most programs, this difference should create no problems. However, if a program depends on the byte-by-byte encoding values that an integer has, you should be aware of potential logic errors.
For programs that use mainframe binary data and rely on the internal representation of integer values, you should compile with the BINARY(S390) compiler option. For such programs, you should avoid the USAGE COMP-5 type, which is treated as the native binary data format regardless of whether the BINARY(S390) option is in effect.
Examples: numeric data and internal representation
related references
BINARY
Appendix A. Summary of differences with host COBOL