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1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

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Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#141

Post by kstrauser »

I'm sticking with power-of-2 sizes. Invent a new word for decimal, metric units where appropriate. I proposed[0] "kitribytes", "metribytes", "gitribytes", etc. Just because "kilo" has a meaning in one context doesn't mean we're stuck with it in others. It's not as though the ancient Greeks originally meant "kilo" to mean "exactly 1,000". "Giga" just meant "giant". "Tera" is just "monster". SI doesn't have sole ownership for words meaning "much bigger than we can possibly count at a glance".

Donald Knuth himself said[1]:

> The members of those committees deserve credit for raising an important issue, but when I heard their proposal it seemed dead on arrival --- who would voluntarily want to use MiB for a maybe-byte?! So I came up with the suggestion above, and mentioned it on page 94 of my Introduction to MMIX. Now to my astonishment, I learn that the committee proposals have actually become an international standard. Still, I am extremely reluctant to adopt such funny-sounding terms; Jeffrey Harrow says "we're going to have to learn to love (and pronounce)" the new coinages, but he seems to assume that standards are automatically adopted just because they are there.

If Gordon Bell and Gene Amdahl used binary sizes -- and they did -- and Knuth thinks the new terms from the pre-existing units sound funny -- and they do -- then I feel like I'm in good company on this one.

0: https://honeypot.net/2017/06/11/introducing-metric-quantity....

1: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news99.html

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#142

Post by deathanatos »

nayuki wrote: post #106
wvenable wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The computer industry abused these definitions because 1000 is close to 1024, creating endless confusion. They didn't abuse the definitions. It's simply the result of dealing with pins, wires, and bits. For your problems, for example, you won't ever have a system with 1 "MB" of RAM where that's 1,000,000 bytes. The 8086 processor had 20 address lines, 2^20, that's 1,048,576 bytes for 1MB. SI units make no sense for…

> They didn't abuse the definitions. Yes they did. Kilo- means 1000 in SI/metric. The computer industry decided, "Gee that looks awfully close to 1024. Let's sneakily make it mean 1024 in our context and sell our RAM that way". > It's simply the result of dealing with pins, wires, and bits. For your problems, for example, you won't ever have a system with 1 "MB" of RAM where that's 1,000,000 bytes. I'm not disputing…

> Exactly! Therefore, use IEC 60027 prefixes like kibi-, because they are the ones that reflect the binary nature of computers. Only use SI if you genuinely respect SI definitions.

You have to sort of remember that these didn't exist at the time that "kilobyte" came around. The binary prefixes are — relatively speaking — very new.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#143

Post by arjie »

It is good that the old ways have not been forgotten. We used to argue about tabs vs. spaces, GPL vs. BSD, Linux vs. BSD, FreeBSD vs. NetBSD, BSD 2 clause vs BSD 3 clause. It's important to complain about things pointlessly. Builds character.

Anyway, here's my contribution to help make everything worse. I think we should use Kylobyte, etc. when we don't care whether it's 1000 or 1024. KyB. See! Works great.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#144

Post by crazygringo »

waffletower wrote: post #103

The author decidedly has expert syndrome -- they deny both the history and rational behind memory units nomenclature. Memory measurements evolved utilizing binary organizational patterns used in computing architectures. While a proud French pedant might agree with the decimal normalization of memory units discussed, it aligns more closely to the metric system, and it may have benefits for laypeople, it fails to accou…

What are you talking about? The article literally fully explains the rationale, as well as the history. It's not "denying" anything. Seems entirely reasonable and balanced to me.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#146

Post by pwdisswordfishy »

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…

> classic 3.5 inch floppy disks

90 mm floppy disks. https://jdebp.uk/FGA/floppy-discs-are-90mm-not-3-and-a-half-...

Which I have taken to calling 1440 KiB – accurate and pretty recognizable at the same time.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#147

Post by kstrauser »

deathanatos wrote: post #136
Taniwha wrote: post #128

Oh sure, and next you'll say a byte is 10 bits ....

The word "octet" is absolutely the kibibyte of "bits in a byte".

I can go along with that, mostly. When you say "octet", some old-timer with an IBM 650 can't go whining that kids these days can't even read his 7-bit emails.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#148

Post by int_19h »

lukan wrote: post #138
ineedasername wrote: post #92

> Why does 1000 still make more sense? The author doesn’t actually answer their question, unless I missed something? They go on to make a few more observations, and say finally only that the current different definitions are sometimes confusing, to non experts. I don’t see much of an argument here for changing anything. Some non experts experience minor confusion about two things that are different, did I miss someth…

Because it would be literally correct. Kilo means 1000, not 1024.

"kilo" means what people take it to mean in any particular context. In computing, it is overwhelmingly power of two even today, and if you don't use it in this manner you have to clarify to be understood properly.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#149

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

pif wrote: post #69
happytoexplain wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line between "literal" and "colloquial" becomes blurred when a word consisting of strongly-defined parts ("kilo") gets used in official, standardized contexts with a different meaning. In fact, this is the only case I can think of where that has ever happened.

"colloquial" has no place in official contexts. I'll happily talk about kB and MB without considering the small difference between 1000 and 1024, but on a contract "kilo" will unequivocally mean 1000, unless explicitely defined as 1024 for the sake of that document.

> on a contract "kilo" will unequivocally mean 1000, unless explicitely defined as 1024 for the sake of that document.

If we are talking about kilobytes, it could just as easily the opposite.

Unless you were referring to only contracts which you yourself draft, in which case it'd be whatever you personally want.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#150

Post by crazygringo »

kstrauser wrote: post #141

I'm sticking with power-of-2 sizes. Invent a new word for decimal, metric units where appropriate. I proposed[0] "kitribytes", "metribytes", "gitribytes", etc. Just because "kilo" has a meaning in one context doesn't mean we're stuck with it in others. It's not as though the ancient Greeks originally meant "kilo" to mean "exactly 1,000". "Giga" just meant "giant". "Tera" is just "monster". SI doesn't have sole owners…

> Invent a new word for decimal, metric units where appropriate.

No, they already did the opposite with KiB, MiB.

Because most metric decimal units are used for non-computing things. Kilometers, etc. Are you seriously proposing that kilometers should be renamed kitrimeters because you think computing prefixes should take priority over every other domain of science and life?

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