this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Technology

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144
Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes (zeta.one)
submitted 11 months ago by wischi@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
159 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

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[โ€“] Humanius@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

Short answer: It's because of binary.
Computers are very good at calculating with powers of two, and because of that a lot of computer concepts use powers of two to make calculations easier.

1024 = 2^10^

Edit: Oops.. It's 2^10^, not 2^7^
Sorry y'all.. ๐Ÿ˜…

[โ€“] irdc@derp.foo 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

1024 = 2^10^

FYFY

[โ€“] Motorheadbanger@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

~~FYFY~~ FTFY FTFY

[โ€“] irdc@derp.foo 6 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I deserve that. Iโ€™m just gonna leave my typo. Thanks for the laugh!

[โ€“] Skasi@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

1024 = 2^7^

I'm confused, why this quotation? 1024 is 2^10^, not 2^7^

[โ€“] Sheeple@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

So the problem is that our decimal number system just sucks. Should have gone with hexadecimal ๐Ÿ˜Ž

/Joking, if it isn't obvious. Thank you for the explanation.

[โ€“] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Or seximal!

Not that 1024 would be any better, as it's 4424 in base 6.