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1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

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Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#291

Post by [deleted] »

thfuran wrote: post #238
dietr1ch wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think of base 10 being meaningful in binary computers. Indexing 1k needs 10 bits regardless if you wanted 1000 or 1024, and the base 10 leaves some awkward holes. In my mind base 10 only became relevant when disk drive manufacturers came up with disks with "weird" disk sizes (maybe they needed to reserve some space for internals, or it's just that the disk platters didn't like powers of two) and realised that…

>I don't think of base 10 being meaningful in binary computers. Okay, but what do you mean by “10”?

[deleted]

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#292

Post by simondotau »

philipswood wrote: post #257
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…

Yes, tomato's ARE actually a fruit. But really!? I'll keep calling it in nice round powers of two, thank you very much.

Even more weirdly, pumpkins are berries. But that’s a botanical definition. In the kitchen they (and tomatoes) are classified as vegetables.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#293

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

tombert wrote: post #115
pif wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never heard It doesn't matter. "kilo" means 1000. People are free to use it wrong if they wish.

All words are made up. They weren’t handed down from a deity, they were made up by humans to communicate ideas to other humans. “Kilo” can mean what we want in different contexts and it’s really no more or less correct as long as both parties understand and are consistent in their usage to each other.

> “Kilo” can mean what we want in different contexts

Fair enough.

1000 watts is a kilowatt

1000 hertz is a kilohertz

1000 metres is a kilometre

1000 litres is a kilolitre

1000 joules is a kilojoule

1000 volts is a kilovolt

1000 newtons is a kilonewton

1000 pascals is a kilopascal

1024 bytes is a kilobyte, because that's what we're used to and we don't want to change to a new prefix

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#294

Post by notorandit »

Again?

1 kB is 1024 B. It's measurement unit thing. Not logics. 8 bits in a byte. Not 10, neither 6 nor 5. Just 8.

Like feet in yards, inches in feet, meters in kilometers and ounces in pounds.

It's 1024. Period.

Then of course you are free to count as many bytes as you want and call that bunch a kB.

Pretending anyone else will agree on that is a different thing.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#295

Post by notorandit »

its_magic wrote: post #277
PostOnce wrote: post #244

There is a counterproductive obsession with powers of 10. Sometimes, other systems just make more sense. For example, for time, or angles, or bytes. There are properties of certain numbers (or bases) that make everything descending from them easier to deal with. for angles and time (and feet): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_highly_composite_numb... For other problems we use base 2, 3, 8, 16, or 10. Must we tr…

Agreed. Metric is stupid. The ancient Sumerians used multiples of 60, as we continue to do for time and angles (which are related) today. It makes perfect sense. 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, which makes it easy to use in calculations. Even the metric people are not so crazy as to propose replacing these with powers of 10. Same with pounds, for example. A pound is 16 ounces, which can be divided 4 times witho…

And 60 can be also divided by 10, 12, 15 and 30.

And you can go with 120 or, better 210 so you get 7 in.

Pure madness.

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#296

Post by purplehat_ »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #253
dietr1ch wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think of base 10 being meaningful in binary computers. Indexing 1k needs 10 bits regardless if you wanted 1000 or 1024, and the base 10 leaves some awkward holes. In my mind base 10 only became relevant when disk drive manufacturers came up with disks with "weird" disk sizes (maybe they needed to reserve some space for internals, or it's just that the disk platters didn't like powers of two) and realised that…

> I don't think of base 10 being meaningful in binary computers. They communicate via the network, right? And telephony has always been in base 10 bits as opposed to base two eight bit bytes IIUC. So these two schemes have always been in tension. So at some point the Ki, Mi, etc prefixes were introduced along with b vs B suffixes and that solved the issue 3+ decades ago so why is this on the HN front page ?! A better…

To be fair, the octet as the byte has been dominant for decades. POSIX even has the definition “A byte is composed of a contiguous sequence of 8 bits.” I would wager many software engineers don't even know that a non-octet bytes were a thing, given that college CS curricula typically just teach a byte is 8 bits.

I found some search results about Texas Instruments' digital signal processors using 16-bit bytes, and came across this blogpost from 2017 talking about implementing 16-bit bytes in LLVM: https://embecosm.com/2017/04/18/non-8-bit-char-support-in-cl.... Not sure if they actually implemented it, but that was surprising to me that non octet bytes still exist, albeit in a very limited manner.

Do you know of any other uses for bytes that are not 8 bits?

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#298

Post by its_magic »

kalaksi wrote: post #289
its_magic wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Metric is stupid. The ancient Sumerians used multiples of 60, as we continue to do for time and angles (which are related) today. It makes perfect sense. 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, which makes it easy to use in calculations. Even the metric people are not so crazy as to propose replacing these with powers of 10. Same with pounds, for example. A pound is 16 ounces, which can be divided 4 times witho…

> Same with pounds, for example. A pound is 16 ounces, which can be divided 4 times without involving any fractions. Try that with metric. Not sure if you're actually serious... 1 kg is 1000 g, dividing with 4 gets you 250 g, no fractions. And no need to remember arbitrary names or numbers for conversions. > Then there's temperature. Fahrenheit just works more naturally over the human-scale temperature range without…

> I'm not sure I get it

I'm pretty sure that you don't

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#299

Post by _0ffh »

kalaksi wrote: post #289
its_magic wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Metric is stupid. The ancient Sumerians used multiples of 60, as we continue to do for time and angles (which are related) today. It makes perfect sense. 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, which makes it easy to use in calculations. Even the metric people are not so crazy as to propose replacing these with powers of 10. Same with pounds, for example. A pound is 16 ounces, which can be divided 4 times witho…

> Same with pounds, for example. A pound is 16 ounces, which can be divided 4 times without involving any fractions. Try that with metric. Not sure if you're actually serious... 1 kg is 1000 g, dividing with 4 gets you 250 g, no fractions. And no need to remember arbitrary names or numbers for conversions. > Then there's temperature. Fahrenheit just works more naturally over the human-scale temperature range without…

> Celsius also aligns well with Kelvins without fractions (unlike fahrenheit).

But Fahrenheit aligns well with Rankine without fractions (unlike Celsius). [Imagine some symbol here indicating humour.]

Re: 1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?

#300

Post by its_magic »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #290
its_magic wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Metric is stupid. The ancient Sumerians used multiples of 60, as we continue to do for time and angles (which are related) today. It makes perfect sense. 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, which makes it easy to use in calculations. Even the metric people are not so crazy as to propose replacing these with powers of 10. Same with pounds, for example. A pound is 16 ounces, which can be divided 4 times witho…

> A pound is 16 ounces, which can be divided 4 times without involving any fractions. Try that with metric. 1000 g, 500 g, 250 g, 125 g I also don't understand the fear around fractions - we deal with halves, quarters and fifths all the time in the natural world.

> I also don't understand the fear around fractions - we deal with halves, quarters and fifths all the time in the natural world.

Yes, and a certain fast food company found that their 1/3 lb burgers weren't selling well, because their idiot customers can't maff too good and thought 1/4 was bigger than 1/3.

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