| Author |
Message |
slebetman@yahoo.com
Guest
|
 Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 12:43 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
slebetman@yahoo.com wrote:
| Quote: | jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
In article <1133957672.066443.219040@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"slebetman@yahoo.com" <slebetman@gmail.com> wrote:
.. That's why a lot of older
documentation talked about 'octets'.
We never did. I don't recall ever typing that word.
The basis of the internet. Almost all RFCs use octet instead of byte:
|
Also all of IEC and ITU documents and specifications.
IEC 60870-5-101 protocol specification for example does not contain the
word 'byte'. All data objects are defined as multiples of octets in
size.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Rich Grise
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:35 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 12:59:49 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:
| Quote: | "Eric Gisse" <jowr.pi@gmail.com> wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
"Eric Gisse" <jowr.pi@gmail.com> wrote:
snip
Unlike a lot of people, I *do* care about what is inside of my box. On
a related note, I will *NOT* use Maxtor drives nor will Intel - barring
a serious shift towards quality - ever grace my systems again.
You don't have a need to know how that part of the computing biz
is working? It is a pretty bad bias that you're incorporating
into your computing usage. I stayed with AOL just to observe
what most uneducated users were experiencing. In that way I can
extrapolate computing needs and usage 5-10 years from now.
Eh?
My aversion to Intel and Maxtor is through personal experience and
overwhelming ancedotal evidence from other people. Not because of some
ignorant bias, like what you seem to be implying.
Reread what I wrote. You ensure that your bias remain ignorant.
Intel is contantly working on fixing bugs, aspects, and new
architectures or twiddles of the current architecture. If you
don't play with it occasionally, you won't know if what bit
you badly has been fixed or still exists. If you expect any
of your work to be used or transferred to or through an
Intel architecture platform, then it is wise and frugal to
check out the competition every once in a while.
I can't think of any computing that won't be put on or thru
an Intel these days.
|
I was astonished the other day, having been following this thread, I
checked to see what processor my $300.00 e-bay computer has; it seems
slow, and I thought I'd blame Intel, but imagine my surprise:
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 4
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) Processor
stepping : 4
cpu MHz : 996.487
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 1985.74
Maybe a fxxxing gigaherts isn't fast enough for today's bloatware? I
remember installing Slackware 3, back in the late 1990's, including X,
and it was just really lean and clean and quick - really snappy response.
On a Cyrix 6X86-P150.
What happened? Howcome everything is so blasted slow that you need a
processor ten to a hundred times faster than we used to have, just to
type a message to a newsgroup?
(in case you're wondering, a "bogomip" is a "bogus MIPS" - it's just an
ordinary timing loop that doesn't account for caching or arithmetic or
anything.)
Thanks,
Rich |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rich The Newsgroup Wacko
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:35 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 12:56:14 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:
| Quote: | onehappymadman@yahoo.com wrote:
Rich The Newsgroup Wacko wrote:
On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 05:58:02 -0800, tadchem wrote:
....
shoes off. Hard-core computer geeks wear sandals. You can get to
1,048,575 (one 'meg') that way.
And if you're naked, boys can count to 2,097,151. ;-P
Oh geez. Everyone, male or female, can count at least up to 16,777,215
(8 fingers, 2 thumbs, 10 toes, 2 arms, 2 legs). Reserve the male part
as an "overflow flag".
Nope. Not overflow. Parity check bit.
|
To determine if you're "odd" or "even"? ;-P
--
Cheers!
Rich
------
"BAD SEX SUCKS"
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Robert Low
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:35 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
John B wrote:
| Quote: | Does anyone know if Colossal Adventure is still out there somewhere? I
still use the magic words 'Xyzzy' & 'Plugh' when I need a temporary
filename. Sooo many people ask 'What's that mean?' when they see them.
|
http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
The Ghost In The Machine
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:35 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
In sci.physics, Rich Grise
<richgrise@example.net>
wrote
on Sat, 10 Dec 2005 20:13:41 GMT
<pan.2005.12.10.20.17.43.809678@example.net>:
| Quote: | On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 12:59:49 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:
"Eric Gisse" <jowr.pi@gmail.com> wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
"Eric Gisse" <jowr.pi@gmail.com> wrote:
snip
Unlike a lot of people, I *do* care about what is inside of my box. On
a related note, I will *NOT* use Maxtor drives nor will Intel - barring
a serious shift towards quality - ever grace my systems again.
You don't have a need to know how that part of the computing biz
is working? It is a pretty bad bias that you're incorporating
into your computing usage. I stayed with AOL just to observe
what most uneducated users were experiencing. In that way I can
extrapolate computing needs and usage 5-10 years from now.
Eh?
My aversion to Intel and Maxtor is through personal experience and
overwhelming ancedotal evidence from other people. Not because of some
ignorant bias, like what you seem to be implying.
Reread what I wrote. You ensure that your bias remain ignorant.
Intel is contantly working on fixing bugs, aspects, and new
architectures or twiddles of the current architecture. If you
don't play with it occasionally, you won't know if what bit
you badly has been fixed or still exists. If you expect any
of your work to be used or transferred to or through an
Intel architecture platform, then it is wise and frugal to
check out the competition every once in a while.
I can't think of any computing that won't be put on or thru
an Intel these days.
I was astonished the other day, having been following this thread, I
checked to see what processor my $300.00 e-bay computer has; it seems
slow, and I thought I'd blame Intel, but imagine my surprise:
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 4
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) Processor
stepping : 4
cpu MHz : 996.487
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 1985.74
Maybe a fxxxing gigaherts isn't fast enough for today's bloatware? I
remember installing Slackware 3, back in the late 1990's, including X,
and it was just really lean and clean and quick - really snappy response.
On a Cyrix 6X86-P150.
What happened? Howcome everything is so blasted slow that you need a
processor ten to a hundred times faster than we used to have, just to
type a message to a newsgroup?
(in case you're wondering, a "bogomip" is a "bogus MIPS" - it's just an
ordinary timing loop that doesn't account for caching or arithmetic or
anything.)
|
OK, standard dumb questions time.
[1] How much RAM?
[2] Is your system swapping like crazy? A page loaded from RAM might
take 102.4 microseconds to step through (25 ns per memory cycle,
4096 bytes per page). However, a page loaded from disk will
take maybe 5 milliseconds -- almost 50 times longer.
[3] If you're a game-player like me (although I can't say I'm a *good*
game player :-) ) you will also know that the quality of one's
video card is very important in that all-important metric,
frame rate.
My system is slightly faster than yours (1.4 GHz Athlon, 2802 bogoMips)
and I can't say it's sluggish -- though with Quake4 it could be faster,
and that's probably because I need a better video card (it's a BT5500
nVidia-based affair, and at that it's an improvement over the ATI 9000
that was originally therein).
I'll admit I do wonder.
--
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
John B
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:35 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
On 10/12/2005 the venerable mensanator@aol.compost etched in runes:
..
..
| Quote: | Of course, I'm somewhat nostalgic having written my first
program with BASIC on a Teletype. It was interesting
watching the Teletype s..l..o..w..l..y print out the results
of your MIRV warhead cluster detonating over the computer's
cities and waiting for it's retaliation. It was so slow you could
add up the numbers in your head before the totals were printed
to see who won that exchange (and whether 3 independently
targeted 1 megaton warheads were better in the long run
than single 5-10 megaton warheads). But the novelty of that
wore off quickly.
/BAH
|
Does anyone know if Colossal Adventure is still out there somewhere? I
still use the magic words 'Xyzzy' & 'Plugh' when I need a temporary
filename. Sooo many people ask 'What's that mean?' when they see them.
--
John B |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Eric Gisse
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:35 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
[snip]
| Quote: |
This is all explained in the drive's fine print, but still annoys the
piss out of me because I always feel slightly cheated.
Do you always feel slightly cheated when you buy a car and
the estimated mileage/gallon doesn't exactly match.
|
[snip side discussion I don't know enough about to usefully continue]
This is the problem!
My hardware is described with hard numbers.
[If I don't mention it now, I can easily see this diverging into how
numbers are addressed in computers. ]
I buy a drive marked as 300 GB. For as long as I can remember, *B has
referred to bytes. I am unsure when it changed. I would be very
surprised to learn that everything in computing shifted to being
base-10 while I was on the can.
The actual capacity is 279 gigabytes. 21 gigabytes are gone not because
of how I formatted the drive or how the OS otherwise deals with it, but
because harddrives are now being sold using SI-esque units while the
hardware works in powers of 2. While the concept of converting units is
not either foreign or difficult, I don't like doing it unless there is
a reason for me to do so.
1 SI-gigabyte is 1x10^9 bytes.
1 gigabyte is 2^30, or 1073741824 bytes.
I want to be very clear on this, the only confusion is about what I am
trying to say.
My drive was sold to me as 300 GB. Since all my software and my O/S
treats things in powers of 2, I believe it is reasonable to expect 300
gigabytes. In actuality, it is 279. Why? Look.
300 'GB' * 10^9 bytes/'GB' * 2^-30 GB/byte = 279.4 GB
It may seem trivial to you, but I view it as a redefinition of
convention which pays NO heed to the reason why the convention existed
in the first place. Imagine if overnight, natural log was redefined to
be base 4. Or if mpg was redefined to be meters per gallon. Wouldn't
that bother you just a little?
So yes, I would and do feel a little bit cheated. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Henry
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 8:34 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:dnekmn$8qk_004@s962.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
| Quote: | Working at the maze for a couple of days seems a tad long.
What kinds of approaches did you use? Or were you simply
stuck using the brute force method without making paper notes?
|
I was just stumbling around. And the "couple of days" only involved a few
hours each at her apartment, where I was welcome for short periods of time
(another completely unrelated story). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
David Ames
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:00 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
onehappymadman@yahoo.com wrote:
| Quote: | What's so special about 2^10 that computer scientists say it's 1k? The
SI system says 1k is 1000. 2^10 is not 1000, it is 1024.
Because that's the useful definition of a useful quantity, duh. |
David Ames |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Eric Gisse
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:04 am Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
Rich Grise wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 15:24:03 -0800, Eric Gisse wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
...
It *isn't* overhead though!
I'm trying to be real clear about this. I am not confused about what
overhead is, nor am I confused about hidden files. I am also not saying
you are confused, it is just that you are totally correct about the
wrong thing! :P
Note also that a directory is also a file from the point of view
of the operating system. So, if you have 10,000 files on your
disk at installation time, you have to multiply 10,000 by
the number of bytes it takes to retain information about each
file.
All true, but irrelevant to the situation at hand. :)
My O/S measures and addresses everything in bytes, kilobytes,
megabytes, gigabytes.
All of these quantities, as you know, are multiples of 1024.
The drives are sold, though, using the pseudo-SI measurments of
'mebbibytes' and other fantastically annoying measurments that
completely defines the phrase "close, but not quite".
One 'mebbibyte' or however the fuck you spell it is 1x10^6 bytes, not
1024^2 bytes [I always remember stuff in powers of 1024 rather than 2].
The difference is only 48,576 bytes but it adds up when you are in the
hundreds of gigabytes range.
Speaking of being "right" about the "wrong" thing, you've got it exactly
back-asswards.
A "kibibyte" is 1024 bytes, and so on. The ones with the "b" in the middle
are the binary ones, multiples of 1024 decimal. (10000000000 binary). The
marketing ploy is to take a drive that actually has 279 * 1,073,741,824
(decimal) bytes of storage, and say it has 300 * 1,000,000,000 (decimal)
bytes. So when they sell you a "300 MeGaByte" drive, they're selling you a
"279 MeBiByte" drive.
|
Bloody hell, you are right.
My computer still uses the *ibibyte representations, though.
| Quote: |
Non-geeks don't spot it, and, like audiophools, spend more money per byte
than geeks do. ;-P
Cheers!
Rich |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
In article <1134262899.282889.219420@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"Eric Gisse" <jowr.pi@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
[snip]
This is all explained in the drive's fine print, but still annoys the
piss out of me because I always feel slightly cheated.
Do you always feel slightly cheated when you buy a car and
the estimated mileage/gallon doesn't exactly match.
[snip side discussion I don't know enough about to usefully continue]
This is the problem!
My hardware is described with hard numbers.
|
It is described using computing biz terminology and metrics,
not science metrics.
| Quote: |
[If I don't mention it now, I can easily see this diverging into how
numbers are addressed in computers. ]
|
That wouldn't be a diversion; it would address your mistaken
assumptions about how the computing biz defines its nomenclature.
| Quote: |
I buy a drive marked as 300 GB. For as long as I can remember, *B has
referred to bytes.
|
And bytes were never defined. They still aren't. A byte
could be a single bit or an unknown set of bits. A byte
is generally a copy of the settings of n contiguous bits.
| Quote: | I am unsure when it changed. I would be very
surprised to learn that everything in computing shifted to being
base-10 while I was on the can.
|
It was base-10 when salemen were talking to potential customers
who thought in base-10. It was base-8 when machine architectures
used octal addressing. It was base-2 when digital architectures
were used. It was base-16 if the addressing was IBM-based.
| Quote: |
The actual capacity is 279 gigabytes. 21 gigabytes are gone not because
of how I formatted the drive
|
I don't believe that you did an original formatting of that disk.
In my day, we called the first time for DECtapes certifying. I
don't remember what the word was for virgin disk packs. This
initialization takes up room.
| Quote: | or how the OS otherwise deals with it, but
because harddrives are now being sold using SI-esque units
|
You have been told that this is not SI.
| Quote: | while the
hardware works in powers of 2. While the concept of converting units is
not either foreign or difficult, I don't like doing it unless there is
a reason for me to do so.
|
You are given a maximum number. There is no way you will ever get
more bits out that pack. That is all you are given.
There were customers who spent enormous amounts of money and
human wallclock time to squeeze out every useful bit they could
when this media cost more than your house does.
| Quote: |
1 SI-gigabyte is 1x10^9 bytes.
1 gigabyte is 2^30, or 1073741824 bytes.
|
Now count the fucking bits. Bytes are not precise enough.
Do you insist that the milk you buy is measured to the
accuracy of a nanogallon?
| Quote: |
I want to be very clear on this, the only confusion is about what I am
trying to say.
|
Possibly. Have you also considered that you may also be confused
about how your physical disk looks and works? Have you ever
looked physically at those bits and how they are arranged across
the platters?
| Quote: |
My drive was sold to me as 300 GB.
|
That is your maximum.
| Quote: | Since all my software and my O/S
treats things in powers of 2, I believe it is reasonable to expect 300
gigabytes. In actuality, it is 279. Why?
|
I've been trying to tell you why but have not managed to be
able to do the writeup well enough.
| Quote: | Look.
300 'GB' * 10^9 bytes/'GB' * 2^-30 GB/byte = 279.4 GB
It may seem trivial to you, but I view it as a redefinition of
convention which pays NO heed to the reason why the convention existed
in the first place.
|
This is not a redefinition of a convention. The convention was
always done this way. And I'm older than you are.
| Quote: | Imagine if overnight, natural log was redefined to
be base 4. Or if mpg was redefined to be meters per gallon. Wouldn't
that bother you just a little?
So yes, I would and do feel a little bit cheated.
|
You are trying to do a crank job. I'm about done here.
/BAH |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
In <dn6t88$4ib$1@usenet01.srv.cis.pitt.edu>, on 12/07/2005
at 02:57 PM, szekeres@pitt.edu (GregS) said:
| Quote: | I remember the term.
|
The term "nybble" came from a humorous article in Datamation. I never
expected anybody to take it seriously.
| Quote: | I think byte is simply a subdivision of a word,
|
A byte is a string of consecutive bits, and could cross word
boundaries. Some computers, e.g., IBM 7030, had hardware to support
bytes crossing words, while others, e.g., PDP-6/PDP-10, did not.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>
Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not
reply to spamtrap@library.lspace.org |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
In <dn9ig8$oip$1@rainier.uits.indiana.edu>, on 12/08/2005
at 03:12 PM, glhansen@steel.ucs.indiana.edu (Gregory L. Hansen)
said:
| Quote: | Speaking of *real* decimal gigabytes, what the heck does it mean for
a digital camera to have "5 mexapixels (effective)", and why is
"(effective)" in parentheses?
|
My guess is that it doesn't have enough memory to hold 5 M pixels but
it does have enough memory to hold a compressed file that expands to 5
M pixels. It's another way to make you believe that your getting more
than they're actually giving you.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>
Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not
reply to spamtrap@library.lspace.org |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
In article <zeMmf.8476$SG5.4117@fed1read01>,
"Richard Henry" <rphenry@home.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:dnekmn$8qk_004@s962.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
Working at the maze for a couple of days seems a tad long.
What kinds of approaches did you use? Or were you simply
stuck using the brute force method without making paper notes?
I was just stumbling around.
|
Ah! That isn't the way software developers work. They use
a modified form of the Scientific Method. I've never been
able to describe this but essentially each investigation starts
from scratch where a science investigation starts from the last
success.
[emoticon reads what fingers just typed] I don't like that one
either.
| Quote: | And the "couple of days" only involved a few
hours each at her apartment, where I was welcome for short periods of time
(another completely unrelated story).
|
Oh, you were distracted. Solving computing problems required
no distractions. My yoga teacher remarked how easily programmers
could do certain yoga postures easily because some require
not-thinking. Developers do this as automatically as breathing.
Not-thinking in yoga is removing the chattering you hear internally.
/BAH |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
|
|
In article <1134228772.879024.316260@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"mensanator@aol.compost" <mensanator@aol.com> wrote:
| Quote: | jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
In article <1134147969.609373.291690@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"Randy Poe" <poespam-trap@yahoo.com> wrote:
Does anybody want a copy of "Lisa on a Stool" on paper
tape? I'll trade you for the lunar landscape.
Boo-hoo. Nobody ever made a male pinup. It was a couple
years later (after that printer paper phase) that Burt
Reynolds was the centerfold. It caused a huge sensation
in my group which was 100% female at the time. Even
then they wouldn't let me look and I was too cheap to
buy a magazine.
Ah, the difference between men and women.
Do you think the development of GUI was driven by men's
never ending desire to get better pinups? If women were
in charge, would we still be using TTY interfaces?
|
Good grief, absolutely not. Video terminals increased
production by reducing the time waiting for the mechanical
TTY innards to adjust themselves.
| Quote: | Not that
there's anything wrong with that, I am currently working on
making yet another port (3rd or 4th) of the 25 year old
Apple ][ text adventure game THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF EAMON
to Python so I can still play it without mucking about with
an emulator.
|
Why did you choose Python? Or is it what you have on-line
right now?
| Quote: |
Of course, I'm somewhat nostalgic having written my first
program with BASIC on a Teletype. It was interesting
watching the Teletype s..l..o..w..l..y print out the results
of your MIRV warhead cluster detonating over the computer's
cities and waiting for it's retaliation. It was so slow you could
add up the numbers in your head before the totals were printed
to see who won that exchange (and whether 3 independently
targeted 1 megaton warheads were better in the long run
than single 5-10 megaton warheads). But the novelty of that
wore off quickly.
|
I was banned from using ASR33s because I broke them from typing
too fast.
/BAH |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Memberlist
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in