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Re: OT - Convert output of byte count to GB count?



On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 04:20:54 +0100, Jerry Stuckle <jstuckle@attglobal.net> wrote:
And who declared these made-up prefixes "official"?

Making up prefixes for something which has always been that way is confusing.

It's simple. When dealing with computers, it's powers of 2. When dealing with distances, it's powers of 10.

Not confusing at all.

I'm not a computer pioneer, but anyway a computer dino. When I started programming the prefix "*iB" wasn't introduced or perhaps it was introduced, but not used in Germany. The first Assembler editors were not similar to the compiling language editors, but comparable to hex editors. It wasn't needed to "compile" Assembler, but in return it was impossible to add a command between two commands, if the coder did not keep free space.

So my generation is aware of the powers of 2 and powers of 10 were completely absurd.

I don't know when I was confused for the first time, however, it's no issue for me to drop the prefix *B and to use the prefix *iB, but I can't stand that since around 10 years using Linux, it's still a chaos, an arbitrary usage of the prefixes. Powers of 10 make completely no sense. Why not simply dropping the powers of 10 and using the prefixes *B and *iB both for the powers of 2?


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