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

Because "computer scientist" is an oxymoron itself.

John

Different symbols: k = 1,000 = 10^3 K = 1,024 = 2^10

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

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

--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

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

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 :-(

A punny one.

- Don

s/is/used to be/

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

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. ;-)

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.

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.