On Tuesday 12 June 2007 02:56, Mark Reitblatt wrote:
> On 6/11/07, Alex Jones <alex@weej.com> wrote:
> > Fine. Stick with Kilobytes, but strictly define it as 10^3 bytes. Just
> > choose one over the other and be consistent.
>
> That's not "consistent". Kilobyte has always meant 2^10 bytes. "kilo"
> in "kilobyte" is not an SI prefix. SI prefixes only apply to SI
> measurements, of which "byte" is not a member. There is no confusion;
> the only place where a kilobyte != 2^10 bytes is in hard drive
> manufacturer's advertising materials. This is the way it has been for
> decades, and it is a perfectly acceptable and desirable standard.
That's an argument that's been heard before but it's *wrong*. SI prefixes
*are* used with non-SI units without losing their normal meaning and there is
no reason why bytes should be an exception. Since kilo has always meant 1000,
kilobyte must initially have meant 1000 bytes, before people started to use
it as if to mean 1024. There is confusion; hard drive manufacturers'
advertising material is not the only place where kilobyte != 2^10 bytes.
--
Magnus Holmgren holmgren@lysator.liu.se
(No Cc of list mail needed, thanks)
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