1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes? • Hacker News Board

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#41

Post by none_to_remain » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:10 PM UTC

goodcanadian wrote: post #36

none_to_remain wrote: post #25

I like how the GNU coreutils seem to have done. They use real, 1024-byte kilobytes by default, but print only the abbreviation of the prefix so it's just 10K or 200M and people can pretend it stands for some other silly word if they want. You can use `--si` for fake, 1000-byte kilobytes - trying it it seems weird that these are reported with a lowercase 'k' but 'M' and so on remain uppercase.

. . . it seems weird that these are reported with a lowercase 'k' but 'M' and so on remain uppercase. For SI units, the abbreviations are defined, so a lowercase k for kilo and uppercase M for mega is correct. Lower case m is milli, c is centi, d is deci. Uppercase G is giga, T is tera and so on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units#...

Of course! I was being silly and just thinking of "k" for the smaller one and "K" for the bigger one.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#42

Post by pif » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

nerdsniper wrote: post #9

Final edit: This ambiguity is documented at least back to 1984, by IBM, the pre-eminent computer company of the time. In 1972 IBM started selling the IBM 3333 magnetic disk drive. This product catalog [0] from 1979 shows them marketing the corresponding disks as "100 million bytes" or "200 million bytes" (3336 mdl 1 and 3336 mdl 11, respectively). By 1984, those same disks were marketed in the "IBM Input/Output Devic…

> Edit: I'm wrong.

You need character to admit that. I bow to you.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#43

Post by adammarples » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #23

nerdsniper wrote: post #9

Final edit: This ambiguity is documented at least back to 1984, by IBM, the pre-eminent computer company of the time. In 1972 IBM started selling the IBM 3333 magnetic disk drive. This product catalog [0] from 1979 shows them marketing the corresponding disks as "100 million bytes" or "200 million bytes" (3336 mdl 1 and 3336 mdl 11, respectively). By 1984, those same disks were marketed in the "IBM Input/Output Devic…

Good lord, arrogance and self-righteousness ? You're blowing the article out of proportion. They don't say anything non-factual or unreasonable - why inject hostility where none is called for? In fact, they practically say the same exact thing you have said: In a nutshell, base-10 prefixes were used for base-2 numbers, and now it's hard to undo that standard in practice. They didn't say anything about making assumpti…

I don't read any drama or hostility, just a discussion about names. OP says that kilobyte means one thing, the commenter says that it means two things and just saying it doesn't can't make that true. I agree, after all, we don't get to choose the names for things that we would like.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#44

Post by bigstrat2003 » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

pif wrote: post #40

nerdsniper wrote: post #9

Final edit: This ambiguity is documented at least back to 1984, by IBM, the pre-eminent computer company of the time. In 1972 IBM started selling the IBM 3333 magnetic disk drive. This product catalog [0] from 1979 shows them marketing the corresponding disks as "100 million bytes" or "200 million bytes" (3336 mdl 1 and 3336 mdl 11, respectively). By 1984, those same disks were marketed in the "IBM Input/Output Devic…

> The wish is for "kilobyte" to have one meaning. Which is the reality. "kilobyte" means "1000 bytes". There's no possible discussion over this fact. Many people have been using it wrong for decades, but its literal value did not change.

In computers, "kilobyte" has a context dependent meaning. It has been thus for decades. It does not only mean 1000 bytes.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#45

Post by nerdsniper » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #23

nerdsniper wrote: post #9

Final edit: This ambiguity is documented at least back to 1984, by IBM, the pre-eminent computer company of the time. In 1972 IBM started selling the IBM 3333 magnetic disk drive. This product catalog [0] from 1979 shows them marketing the corresponding disks as "100 million bytes" or "200 million bytes" (3336 mdl 1 and 3336 mdl 11, respectively). By 1984, those same disks were marketed in the "IBM Input/Output Devic…

Good lord, arrogance and self-righteousness ? You're blowing the article out of proportion. They don't say anything non-factual or unreasonable - why inject hostility where none is called for? In fact, they practically say the same exact thing you have said: In a nutshell, base-10 prefixes were used for base-2 numbers, and now it's hard to undo that standard in practice. They didn't say anything about making assumpti…

I'm not calling the author arrogant or self-righteous. I stated that if a hypothetical person simply assumes that every "kilobyte" they come across is 1,000 bytes, that they are doomed to frequent failures. I implied that for someone to hypothetically adhere to that internal dogma even in the face of impending failures, the primary reasons would be either arrogance or self-righteousness.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#46

Post by pif » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

kmm wrote: post #10

And a megabyte is depending on the context precisely 1000x1000=1,000,000 or 1024x1024=1,048,576 bytes*, except when you're talking about the classic 3.5 inch floppy disks, where "1.44 MB" stands for 1440x1024 bytes, or about 1.47 true MB or 1.41 MiB. * Yeah, I read the article. Regardless of the IEC's noble attempt, in all my years of working with people and computers I've never heard anyone actually pronounce MiB (o…

> I've never heard

It doesn't matter. "kilo" means 1000. People are free to use it wrong if they wish.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#47

Post by marssaxman » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

pif wrote: post #40

nerdsniper wrote: post #9

Final edit: This ambiguity is documented at least back to 1984, by IBM, the pre-eminent computer company of the time. In 1972 IBM started selling the IBM 3333 magnetic disk drive. This product catalog [0] from 1979 shows them marketing the corresponding disks as "100 million bytes" or "200 million bytes" (3336 mdl 1 and 3336 mdl 11, respectively). By 1984, those same disks were marketed in the "IBM Input/Output Devic…

> The wish is for "kilobyte" to have one meaning. Which is the reality. "kilobyte" means "1000 bytes". There's no possible discussion over this fact. Many people have been using it wrong for decades, but its literal value did not change.

That is a prescriptivist way of thinking about language, which is useful if you enjoy feeling righteous about correctness, but not so helpful for understanding how communication actually works. In reality-reality, "kilobyte" may mean either "1000 bytes" or "1024 bytes", depending on who is saying it, whom they are saying it to, and what they are saying it about.

You are free to intend only one meaning in your own communication, but you may sometimes find yourself being misunderstood: that, too, is reality.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#48

Post by pif » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

none_to_remain wrote: post #25

I like how the GNU coreutils seem to have done. They use real, 1024-byte kilobytes by default, but print only the abbreviation of the prefix so it's just 10K or 200M and people can pretend it stands for some other silly word if they want. You can use `--si` for fake, 1000-byte kilobytes - trying it it seems weird that these are reported with a lowercase 'k' but 'M' and so on remain uppercase.

[flagged]

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#49

Post by floren » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #31

gizmo686 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because kilo- already has a meaning. And both usages of kilobyte were (and are) in use. If we are going to fix the problem, we might as well fix it right.

Sure outside of computing in other science it has a meaning but in binary computing traditionally prefix + byte implied binary number quantities. Many things acquire domain specific nuanced meaning ..

And yet in computing, a 1kHz clock is still 1000 cycles per second, and 1 MFLOP is still 1,000,000 floating-point operations per second.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#50

Post by pif » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

For all the people commenting as if the meaning of "kilo" was open to discussion... you are all from the United States of America, and you call your country "America", right?