| Author |
Message |
PeteS
Guest
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 Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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Eric Gisse wrote:
| Quote: | Pooh Bear wrote:
Eric Gisse wrote:
Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
In article <1133922573.855472.297320@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
onehappymadman@yahoo.com> wrote:
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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
1024 is close enough to 1000 for jargon. The meaning is determined from
the context. If you want to sling around a more exact jargon, then use
kibibyte, mebibyte, and gibibyte.
It is "close enough" for the marketing assholes too.
My 300 "GB" harddrive manages to have only 270 actual gigs.
It actually has probably 300 *real* decimal gigabytes but only 270 of those
computer Gigs.
Curiously enough, my computer measures things that are defined by
powers of two. However, my data storage seems to come in things that
are defined by powers of ten. I find that odd. Especially because it
isn't even consistant - RAM is sold in actual gigabytes and megabytes
instead of the marketing version of the gigabyte.
|
That's because memory devices have power of 2 addressing (it would
actually be harder to make it in powers of 10!). Storage devices have
no such limitation, so they ue powers of 10 to make it sound larger.
When reported, though, some systems report the power of 2 version (so a
300 GByte drive, to a marketeer - 300 ^E9 - is 279.396 GBytes using
power of 2 bases. 1GByte, 2^30).
Cheers
PeteS
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Pubkeybreaker
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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Eric Gisse wrote:
| Quote: | Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
It is "close enough" for the marketing assholes too.
My 300 "GB" harddrive manages to have only 270 actual gigs.
|
(1) When one resorts to profanity and name-calling it is usually a
pretty sure
indication that the poster has nothing intelligent to say.
(2) How do you know that it "only" has 270 actual Gbytes? Is it
because the
directory command says that is the amount of free space? Did it
occur to you
that there is overhead information that must be written to the
disk in order to
format it? 300 Gbytes, I am sure is the *unformatted* size of
the disk. Format
information typically takes ~10%. |
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Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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In article <MPG.1e00d100686e5e5898970e@News.Individual.NET>,
Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | In article <dn6oq9$8qk_005@s1200.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...
In article <1133957672.066443.219040@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"slebetman@yahoo.com" <slebetman@gmail.com> wrote:
Pooh Bear wrote:
Deefoo wrote:
onehappymadman@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133922573.855472.297320@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're
going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
I've always been told that kilobytes is with a "K", a "k" meaning
simply
1000 as in SI. This was before megabytes became common, though.
k = 1000
K = degrees Kelvin ( absolute temperature)
K = 1024
k = 1000
is a convention proposed by Tenenbaum. Never caught on though.
Computer science have given us another exception:
b = bits
B = bytes
Then again, on some very old systems, a byte is not necessarily 8 bits
(though modern systems always assumes this).
This assumption is a design flaw. The architecture I worked with
allowed the programmer to define the size of the byte.
.. That's why a lot of older
documentation talked about 'octets'.
We never did. I don't recall ever typing that word.
I've seen "octet" used in many places.
|
I believe you. We never used it. I can imagine the word
was used later when the industry started using it.
| Quote: | It's also widely used in
communications, perhaps because encoding often uses ten bits to
encode an octet and a ten bit byte would blow the kidz minds. ;-)
|
Not to mention all those extra bits if a TTY is involved.
| Quote: |
Despite criticisms, kiB, MiB, GiB are catching on. I've started seeing
them in tender documents and specifications.
And what does a spell checker do with them?
The same thing it does with anything else technical; barfs. ;-)
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It can't barf if the user updated his dictionary. I was thinking
of a science proposal that had SI term and then a procurement
grocery list at the end.
/BAH
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Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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In article <jm1ep11hc4al9b6m84pp7mg4vttmqo146b@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
| Quote: | On 6 Dec 2005 18:29:33 -0800, onehappymadman@yahoo.com wrote:
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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
Because "computer scientist" is an oxymoron itself.
|
Nope. They're trying to carry on our tradition. The fact
that we used 1000 and 1024 interchangably depending on the
phase of the moon doesn't help nail down a precise definition.
/BAH |
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David R Tribble
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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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.
|
Different symbols:
k = 1,000 = 10^3
K = 1,024 = 2^10
1,024 is a power of two, which is a natural choice for BINARY machines,
corresponding to 10 addressing bits.
http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Q/quantifiers.html
[Nuff said, I didn't bother reading the rest of the thread.] |
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Richard Henry
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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"Pooh Bear" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4396C536.FCEA9186@hotmail.com...
| Quote: |
Deefoo wrote:
onehappymadman@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133922573.855472.297320@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
I've always been told that kilobytes is with a "K", a "k" meaning simply
1000 as in SI. This was before megabytes became common, though.
k = 1000
K = degrees Kelvin ( absolute temperature)
The 'rules' for prefixes and suffixes are quite simple really aside from a
few exceptions.
'Multipliers' are upper case like M = mega, G = giga ( except for k =
kilo -
conflict with K = Kelvin )
'Divisors' are *always* lower case like m = milli , n= nano, p = pico
Units of measurement are always upper case except for a few historic
exceptions.
Exceptions are m ( metres ) g ( grams ) and s ( seconds ) from the
original
old metric cgs system.
So a kilogram is kg not KG
|
I believe they also changed the classic "rch" small-distance estimate to a
more politically-correct "rph". |
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Keith Williams
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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In article <3vodq8F16utieU1@individual.net>, map.nospam@f2s.com
says...
| Quote: |
Remember "nybbles"?
Sure. One hexadecimal character. A convenient unit.
- Randy
No it wasn't. It was 1 1/3 octets. :-)
No, it's 1-1/3 triplets. It's half an octet. |
--
Keith |
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Keith Williams
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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In article <dn71d9$8ss_005@s971.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...
| Quote: | In article <MPG.1e00d100686e5e5898970e@News.Individual.NET>,
Keith Williams <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
In article <dn6oq9$8qk_005@s1200.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...
In article <1133957672.066443.219040@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"slebetman@yahoo.com" <slebetman@gmail.com> wrote:
Pooh Bear wrote:
Deefoo wrote:
Despite criticisms, kiB, MiB, GiB are catching on. I've started seeing
them in tender documents and specifications.
And what does a spell checker do with them?
The same thing it does with anything else technical; barfs. ;-)
It can't barf if the user updated his dictionary. I was thinking
of a science proposal that had SI term and then a procurement
grocery list at the end.
|
The speelchecker in the newest version of Gravity (the newsreader I
use in 'doze) is untrainable. It views words with punctuation
other than '.' next to a word as part of the word. Isn't that
stupid?
^^^^^^
flagged
Previous versions allowed one to ignore BiCapitalized words and
words containing numbers. I can't figure out where the settings
are to enable this now.
--
Keith |
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zzbunker@netscape.net
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
| Quote: | In article <1133969597.820383.310500@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
"zzbunker@netscape.net" <zzbunker@netscape.net> wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
In article <1133944327.883571.223730@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
"zzbunker@netscape.net" <zzbunker@netscape.net> wrote:
onehappymadman@yahoo.com wrote:
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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
They say that because a byte is eight bits.
This is a recent definition of a byte.
It's doesn't really matter what SI, or Physics,
IEEE and ASCIII retards have to say about the issue.
You are an idiot.
/BAH
Well, you work for Haliburton,
You are completely nuts.
So your opimiom is not only
irrelevent,
to IEEE, it''s also irrelevent to the Uiniverse
Have you considered donating your toe to science?
|
The only thing I've ever contribuied somthing as dumb as Relativity,
is String Graviitonium.
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The Ghost In The Machine
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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In sci.physics, jmfbahciv@aol.com
<jmfbahciv@aol.com>
wrote
on Wed, 07 Dec 05 15:54:51 GMT
<dn70kb$8ss_002@s971.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>:
| Quote: | In article <1133969597.820383.310500@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
"zzbunker@netscape.net" <zzbunker@netscape.net> wrote:
|
[snip]
| Quote: | Well, you work for Haliburton,
You are completely nuts.
|
Heh.
| Quote: |
So your opimiom is not only
irrelevent,
to IEEE, it''s also irrelevent to the Uiniverse
Have you considered donating your toe to science?
|
And precisely what would scientists do with his toe? :-)
--
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net -- insert random weird question here
It's still legal to go .sigless. |
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Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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In article <GqClf.429$6N2.87@fed1read06>,
Mark Fergerson <nunya@biz.ness> wrote:
| Quote: | jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
In article <1133957672.066443.219040@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"slebetman@yahoo.com" <slebetman@gmail.com> wrote:
Pooh Bear wrote:
Deefoo wrote:
onehappymadman@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133922573.855472.297320@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
I've always been told that kilobytes is with a "K", a "k" meaning simply
1000 as in SI. This was before megabytes became common, though.
k = 1000
K = degrees Kelvin ( absolute temperature)
K = 1024
k = 1000
is a convention proposed by Tenenbaum. Never caught on though.
Computer science have given us another exception:
b = bits
B = bytes
Then again, on some very old systems, a byte is not necessarily 8 bits
(though modern systems always assumes this).
This assumption is a design flaw. The architecture I worked with
allowed the programmer to define the size of the byte.
.. That's why a lot of older
documentation talked about 'octets'.
We never did. I don't recall ever typing that word.
Remember "nybbles"?
|
Never used it. The first time I saw it was yakking in
newsgroups with the bit gods.
| Quote: |
Despite criticisms, kiB, MiB, GiB are catching on. I've started seeing
them in tender documents and specifications.
And what does a spell checker do with them?
IME spellcheckers learn faster than most humans.
|
A spellchecker would never be able to tell. You aren't
thinking. Consider a spec that uses both words.
/BAH |
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Keith Williams
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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|
In article <dn6oq9$8qk_005@s1200.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...
| Quote: | In article <1133957672.066443.219040@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"slebetman@yahoo.com" <slebetman@gmail.com> wrote:
Pooh Bear wrote:
Deefoo wrote:
onehappymadman@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133922573.855472.297320@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
I've always been told that kilobytes is with a "K", a "k" meaning simply
1000 as in SI. This was before megabytes became common, though.
k = 1000
K = degrees Kelvin ( absolute temperature)
K = 1024
k = 1000
is a convention proposed by Tenenbaum. Never caught on though.
Computer science have given us another exception:
b = bits
B = bytes
Then again, on some very old systems, a byte is not necessarily 8 bits
(though modern systems always assumes this).
This assumption is a design flaw. The architecture I worked with
allowed the programmer to define the size of the byte.
.. That's why a lot of older
documentation talked about 'octets'.
We never did. I don't recall ever typing that word.
|
I've seen "octet" used in many places. It's also widely used in
communications, perhaps because encoding often uses ten bits to
encode an octet and a ten bit byte would blow the kidz minds. ;-)
| Quote: | Despite criticisms, kiB, MiB, GiB are catching on. I've started seeing
them in tender documents and specifications.
And what does a spell checker do with them?
The same thing it does with anything else technical; barfs. ;-) |
--
Keith |
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John Larkin
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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|
On 6 Dec 2005 18:29:33 -0800, 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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
|
Because "computer scientist" is an oxymoron itself.
John |
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Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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|
In article <1133969597.820383.310500@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
"zzbunker@netscape.net" <zzbunker@netscape.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
In article <1133944327.883571.223730@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
"zzbunker@netscape.net" <zzbunker@netscape.net> wrote:
onehappymadman@yahoo.com wrote:
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.
Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're going
to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
They say that because a byte is eight bits.
This is a recent definition of a byte.
It's doesn't really matter what SI, or Physics,
IEEE and ASCIII retards have to say about the issue.
You are an idiot.
/BAH
Well, you work for Haliburton,
|
You are completely nuts.
| Quote: | So your opimiom is not only
irrelevent,
to IEEE, it''s also irrelevent to the Uiniverse
|
Have you considered donating your toe to science?
/BAH |
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Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject:
Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!! |
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In article <1133968688.492771.251510@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
"Jeff" <jeffrey_h_miller@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: | First, 1 KB used to be a significant amount of memory.
|
Second of all, we didn't say KB; we used "word" not byte.
Byte machines are new-fangled. [emoticon sticks tongue in
cheek]
<snip>
/BAH |
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