Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 10:16:22 -0400 From: jmr <jmr@pragmagic.com> To: Bill Moran <wmoran@iowna.com> Cc: John Summerfield <summer@os2.ami.com.au>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Large Hard Drive Trouble Message-ID: <3B1500B6.F4CB27A4@pragmagic.com> References: <200105300602.f4U62or31180@possum.os2.ami.com.au> <3B14F7D8.9EBAF909@iowna.com>
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the late 1790's, even before chuck babbage and the analytical engine. instead of complaining, we should be thankful they got the 1000 right; since they got the length of the metre, the mass of the gram; etc. etc. wrong. Bill Moran wrote: > John Summerfield wrote: > > Ohm I don't know about that. How long ago did the French decide > > Kilometre means 1000 metres? > > Kilometer does mean 1000 meters, and kilobyte means 1024 bytes. > http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?prefix > > > The suffixes K, M, G for x1000, x1000000 and x1000000000 predate the DP > > industry by a while. > > And the word "port" predates it even more, yet "the DP industry" has > redefined it for special usage. There are many more examples of this, > many outside "the DP industry". Language changes over time. > > > I've been in the DP industry for longer than Unix has existed, and on > > reflection, I think we got it wrong. > > Possibly. But regardless, it's still used 2 different ways, which > frequently causes confusion, and that was my original point. > Regardless of which base is "correct", the HDD manufacturers _know_ that > using base 2 for byte sizes is generally accepted practice in the > industry, and they intentionally use base 10 because it _looks_ bigger, > NOT because they are trying to be on some side of some old argument. > > -- > If a bird in the hand > is worth two in the bush, > then what can I get for > two hands in the bush? > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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