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Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes (zeta.one)

submitted 10 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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[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Ok so I did read the article. For one I can’t take an article seriously that is using memes. Thing the second yes drive manufacturers are at fault because I’ve been in IT a very very long time and I remember when HD manufacturers actually changed. And the reason was greed (shrinkflation). I mean why change, why inject confusion where there wasn’t any before. Find the simplest least complex reason and that is likely true (Occam's razor). Or follow the money usually works too.

It was never intellectually dishonest to call it a kilobyte, it was convenient and was close enough. It’s what I would have done and it was obviously accepted by lots of really smart people back then so it stuck. If there was ever any confusion it’s by people who created the confusion by creating the alternative (see above).

If you wanna be upset you should be upset at the gibi, kibi, tebi nonsense that we have to deal with now because of said confusion (see above). I can tell you for a fact that no one in my professional IT career of over 30 years has ever used any of the **bi words.

You can be upset if you want but it is never really a problem for folks like me.

Hopefully this helps…

[–] grayman@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Pushing 30 years myself and I confirm literally not a single person I've worked with has ever used **bi... terms. Also, I recall the switch where drive manufacturers went from 1024 to 1000. I recall the poor attempt from shill writers in tech saying it better represents the number of bits as the format parameters applied to a drive changes the space available for files. I recall exactly zero people buying that excuse.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Old IT represent!! 😂

[–] CallumWells@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I just think that kilobyte should have been 1000 (in binary, so 16 in decimal) bytes and so on. Just keep everything relating to the binary storage in binary. That couldn't ever become confusing, right?

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Because your byte is 10 decimal bits, right? EDIT: Bit is actually an abbreviation, BIT, initially, so it would be what, DIT?.. Dits?..