> > My personal beef is with the use of 1024000 for a Megabyte. I prefer
> > 1048576, will accept 1000000, but can't stand the use of 1024000.
> > (A PC HD floppy is 80 tracks * 2 sides * 18 sectors per track * 512 bytes
> > per sector -- how can you get "1.44 M" from THAT?)
On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Ethan Dicks wrote:
> Besides the 1000 x 1024 method, the moniker "1.44Mb" has an additional
> marketing advantage - it's a simple multiple of 720K (which is really
> a 1Mb raw floppy, formatted to 737,280 bytes under DOS, or 1024 x 720).
> It's easier to conceptualize that a "1.44Mb" floppy holds twice as much
> as a "720K" floppy. If you called it a "1.47Mb" floppy, I think there
> would be even more confused newbies than there are now.
I think that "1.4M" does just fine.
For those who are too lazy to do the arithmetic:
A "Decimal" megabyte (10^6) would be 1000000 bytes, which would give the
disk a capacity of 1.47 M
An "honest" megabyte (2^20) would be 1048576 bytes, which would give the
disk a capacity of 1.40625 M
An "IBM disk" or "sleazy" megabyte (1000 * 1024) would be 1024000, which
is the only way to get "1.44" M.
I prefer the binary based unit, I can accept the decimal based unit, but
there just is no possible justification for the mixed one, other than "But
IBM has always done it that way."
It's especially egregious, because even IBM, who use 1024000 for Megabyte
for disks, uses 1048576 for memory. Thus, an IBM megabyte of disk storage
will not hold the content of an IBM megabyte of memory!
> Think of your modem (presuming you have one - not everyone does these
> days)... 28.8kbps goes to "56K" - ignoring the fact that the FCC limits
> the ISP end's power so that you can't achive the theoretical maximum
> speed, it's 57,600bps; but, calling it a "57.6K" modem or even a "fifty-
> seven, six" modem isn't as catchy as "fifty-six kay".
Rounding, I don't have a problem with. In fact, I think that Alan Shugart
was brilliant to round down the capacities of his drives, thus
significantly reducing the support issues ("but I only got 10 and a half
usable megabytes on that 11.1492872347653257 M drive")
But calling the disk 1.44 is NOT rounding from 1.40625, it is inflating
the capacity with a BOGUS unit size.
> Marketing and Mathematics - not much overlap. It was one of the reasons
> that NIST is proposing "Mebibyte" as a term for a "binary" megabyte -
> i.e., 1024 ^ 2 as opposed to 1000 ^ 2. People abuse the terms long
> enough that they lose precision, and maybe you have to go out and
> invent new, non-ambigious terms. Personally, I would rather not add
> jargon for the sake of jargon, but we'll see how far this goes. I don't
> think it reduces the confusion much.
I would really like "Mebibyte". IFF it were to have been introduced more
than twenty years ago! They waited WAY too long.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin_at_xenosoft.com
Received on Fri Jan 04 2002 - 13:17:31 GMT