The "megabyte" discussion

From: SUPRDAVE_at_aol.com <(SUPRDAVE_at_aol.com)>
Date: Fri Jan 22 14:13:14 1999

In a message dated 1/22/99 3:03:37 PM EST, dastar_at_ncal.verio.com writes in
repsonse to chuck mcmannis:

> > I bought an IBM Deskstar hard disk that was rated at 810 Megabytes and it
> > had a note inserted into the packaging that had, IIRC, this to say about
> it:
> >
> > Dear Customer,
> > The disk you have purchased holds 810,549,248 bytes when it
> > is formatted. Some programs will use the value of 1,048,576 bytes
> > as the size of a megabyte and will show this disk as having only
> > 773 "megabytes" of storage, other programs will use 1,024,000 bytes
> > as the size of a megabyte and show the disk as having 791 or 792
> > megabytes. We don't understand it either, sorry for the confusion.
> > IBM Support
>
> I can hardly believe IBM would put that last sentence in any of their
> literature. Some jocular IBMers must've slipped that thru when the
> corporate exec wasn't looking.
>
well, you better believe that induhviduals can and do escalate up to corporate
about things like this that they cannot or will not understand. hey, a little
humour always helps the rank novice to get a clue.

david
Received on Fri Jan 22 1999 - 14:13:14 GMT