why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!!

Yes, but then I've seen a real 2" * 4". Today they are using the same code as "Quarter Pounder" (Weight before cooking) The lumber is cut to 2" * 4" then planed down 1/4" on all four sides leaving 1.5" *

3.5". Have you ever seen 14" * 14" hand hewn oak beams used as the corner posts in the corners of a house? A house I had in Ohio was built with them. A 6" * 6" notch was cut into the inside corner, and the studs were hand hewn 2" * 6" oak. they were over 100 years old and you couldn't drive a nail into them. I had to drill pilot holes for drywall screws when I replaced the damaged wood lath & horse hair plastered walls with 4' * 12' sheets of drywall.

--
?

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Because "computer scientist" is an oxymoron itself.

John

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.

[Nuff said, I didn't bother reading the rest of the thread.]

It's done because it's convenient and accurate enough for everyday use.

Hard disk makers quote *real* bytes btw since the number is bigger.

Graham

It actually has probably 300 *real* decimal gigabytes but only 270 of those computer Gigs.

Graham

kb = kilobits

kB = kilobytes no confusion at all

etc etc....

Graham

And to be totally pedantic, the k prefix for 1000 is always lower case.

Upper case K means degrees Kelvin in the SI sytem of units. I can see how American with their funny measures get confused though.

Graham

2 x 4 is the 'unplaned size' btw.

Graham

The

kilo -

original

I believe they also changed the classic "rch" small-distance estimate to a more politically-correct "rph".

The only thing I've ever contribuied somthing as dumb as Relativity, is String Graviitonium.

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.

--DF

They don't; they say that 1,024 is close enough to 1K that it is sometimes convenient to ignore the difference. The ignorant attempt to copy the usage without understanding it. There's a similar problem with people who attempt to imitate slang without understanding it, e.g., losing the inflection in "I could care less?"

They don't. However, many things that they deal with are in powers of

2, and 1,024 is a convenient power of two that is reasonably close to 1K.

The people misusing "K" don't know from SI. That's why we get monstrosities like drive manufacturers referring to 1,024,000 bytes as

1 MB.

Do you normally measure distances in multiples of 1,204. If not, it's a poor analogy.

It's a serial link; bits per second is the appropriate measure of speed. Also, I've always seen an upper case B when someone gives the speed in octets/second.

Madison Avenue at its best :-(

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A punny one.

- Don

s/is/used to be/

They're no longer 2"x4" before planing. They don't waste 35%.

--
  Keith

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. ;-)

The same thing it does with anything else technical; barfs. ;-)

--
  Keith

Those were the days ! ;-)

My own house is for most part made of 9" thick classic solid brick wall. Victorian style. The timbers are pretty decent too.

Graham

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

Graham

You expect marketing ppl to make sense ?

Graham

No, it's 1-1/3 triplets. It's half an octet.

--
  Keith