Megabyte vs Mebibyte (was Re: Language and English)

From: Sellam Ismail <foo_at_siconic.com>
Date: Fri Jan 4 14:21:31 2002

On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Ethan Dicks wrote:

> Marketing and Mathematics - not much overlap. It was one of the reasons
> that NIST is proposing "Mebibyte" as a term for a "binary" megabyte -

What? That makes no damn sense. A Megabyte was, is, and always will be
1024 * 1024 bytes. The NIST folks are a bunch of stupid losers for even
suggesting such an atrocity.
 
> 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.

They should coin a new term for a fake Megabyte (i.e. something other than
1024 ^ 2). Call it a "Maybebyte".

That wasn't funny.

Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Fri Jan 04 2002 - 14:21:31 GMT

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