Kilo, Mega, Giga,...

Gee - all this time I thought the Zetta prefix was added in honor of Michael Douglas's wife winning the Oscar and the Yotta prefix was added by a Star Wars fan :) :) :)
 
Quote from Quah:
Too bad he is wrong - a Kx is not 1,000 in computer terms - it's 1,024.
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The computer definitions of the prefixes used for RAM and disk space are specific only to those uses and the deviation stems from the early days when you wouldn't have a 1,000 bit memory bank - it had to be 1024 because the # of bits had to be a power of 2 due to the design - so they warped Kilo to mean 1024 in that case and it cascaded from there.

The normal definitions he posted are completely correct and the accepted definitions for everything else - e.g., a Kilometer is 1000 meters, not 1024 meters.
 
Quote from ArchAngel:


The computer definitions of the prefixes used for RAM and disk space are specific only to those uses and the deviation stems from the early days when you wouldn't have a 1,000 bit memory bank - it had to be 1024 because the # of bits had to be a power of 2 due to the design - so they warped Kilo to mean 1024 in that case and it cascaded from there.

The normal definitions he posted are completely correct and the accepted definitions for everything else - e.g., a Kilometer is 1000 meters, not 1024 meters.
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I know the prefixes are correct as defined for things other than computer definitions - such as liters or meters, etc.

My point was in relation to computer specifically since the page starts off with:

"They have entered our language. Everyone uses them. The terms, particularly with "byte", are almost commonplace. Kilobyte, Megabyte and Gigabyte are part of our lexicon. "

Those are computer specific terms. Thus his definitions are incorrect as I stated.
 
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