this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
96 points (68.2% liked)

Technology

60071 readers
3688 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I often find myself explaining the same things in real life and online, so I recently started writing technical blog posts.

This one is about why it was a mistake to call 1024 bytes a kilobyte. It's about a 20min read so thank you very much in advance if you find the time to read it.

Feedback is very much welcome. Thank you.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice to learn about the SI standard notation KiB, MiB, etc. I had no idea.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Here’s my favorite part.

“In addition, the conversions were sometimes not even self-consistent and applied completely arbitrary. The 3½-inch floppy disk for example, which was marketed as “1.44 MB”, was actually not 1.44 MB and also not 1.44 MiB. The size of the double-sided, high-density 3½-inch floppy was 512 bytes per sector, 18 sectors per track, 160 tracks, that’s 512×18×16 = 1’474’560 bytes. To get to “1.44” you must first divide 1’474’560 by 1024 (“bEcAuSE BiNaRY obviously”) to get 1440 and then divide by 1000 for perfect inconsistency, because dividing by 1024 again would get you an ugly number and we definitely don’t want that. We finally end up with “1.44”. Now let’s add “MB” because why the heck not. We already abused those units so much it’s not like they still mean anything and it’s “close enough” anyways. By the way, that “close enough” excuse never “worked when I was in school but what would I know compared to the computer “scientists” back then.

When things get that messy, numbers don’t even mean anything any more. Might as well just label the products using entirely qualitative terms like “big” or “bigger”.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

❤️ Thank you for taking the time to read it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I was taught 1024 in my tech school. So I won’t ever refer to it as 1000 instead 1024. Not that it seems even remotely relevant though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)

kilobyte (KB) is 1000, kibibyte (KiB) is 1024

at least according the the IEC, and id tend to go with them… SI units say that kilo means 1000

load more comments (20 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

WD needed to sell a drive with more advertised space than real space.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unlike many comments here, I enjoyed reading the article, especially the parts in the "I don’t want to use gibibyte!" chapter, where you explain that this (the pedantry) is important in technical and formal situations (such as documentation). Seeing some of the comments here, I think it would have helped to focus on this aspect a bit more.

I also liked the extra part explaining the reasoning for using the Nokia E60.

I don't quite agree with the recommendation to use base 10 SI units where neither KiB or kB would result in nice numbers. I don't see why base 10 should have an influence on computers, and I think it makes more sense to stick to a single unit, such as KiB.

The reasons I have this opinion are probably to do with:

  • My computer has shown me values using KiB, Gib, etc for years - I think it's a KDE default - so I'm already used to the concept of KiB being different from kB.
  • I dislike the concept of base 10 in general. I like the idea of using base 16 universally (because computers. Base 12 is also valid in a less computer-dominant society). I therefore also think 1024 is a silly number to use, and we should measure memory in multiples of 2^8 or 2^16...

p.s, I agree with other commenters that your comments starting with "Pretty obvious that you didn’t read the article." or similar are probably not helping your case... I understand that some comments here have been quite frustrating though.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It is only a mistake from a Human PoV. It is more efficient for the chip since 1000 bytes and 1024 bytes take up the same space. But Humans find anything not base 10 difficult.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›