Forwarded without comment ...

From: Merle K. Peirce <at258_at_osfn.org>
Date: Wed Mar 17 07:26:40 1999

On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Sellam Ismail wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Chuck McManis wrote:
>
> > >From Edupage:
> >
> > COMING TO TERMS WITH BYTES
> > Computer terminology is becoming more precise: the International
> > Electrotechnical Commission, which creates standards for electronic
> > technologies, is adopting new prefixes to describe data values. The new
> > term "kibibyte" will more accurately describe the number of bytes in a
> > kilobyte -- rather than being 1,000, as could be inferred by the prefix
> > "kilo," a kilobyte actually has 1,024 (2 to the 10th power) bytes. The
> > metric prefixes currently employed -- kilo, mega, giga, etc. --
> > accumulate as a power of 10, rather than the binary system used in
> > computer code. Thus, the Commission will use kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi ,
> > pebi and exbi to express exponentially increasing binary multiples (2 to
> > the 10th power, 2 to the 20th power, etc.). "There was a need to
> > straighten this out," says Barry Taylor of the National Institute of
> > Standards and Technology.
> > (Science 12 Mar 99)
>
> Great, let's solve an annoying but minor issue with a majorly annoying and
> hard to pronounce prefix system. Whoever came up with these should be
> dragged out into the middle of the street and beat with a crowbar. They
> obviously watch too many children's television shows. I don't know where
> else one would come up with such stupid prefixes.
>
> Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com

You can borrow mine, but I get to watch...
Received on Wed Mar 17 1999 - 07:26:40 GMT