Kilobyte - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 01:35:01 pm
content: Kilobyte 1000 or 1024 ?How do i create a poll.Google start spitting out wrong answers.Because it was so confusing they made it 1000, now it is really confusing.I vote 1024

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 01:38:30 pm
content: There's no vote. A Kilobyte is 1024 bytes.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 01:41:42 pm
content: A kilo- is 1000. Please do not arbitrarily redefine systems which existed long before your use case.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 01:46:48 pm
content: Kilobyte is 1000, Kibibyte is 1024, and formatted capacities suck

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 01:49:06 pm
content: I think I'll go crawl under a rock or something. So, uhm, there's kebibyte and mebibyte and... I've been wrong for 20 years?

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 01:49:31 pm
content: KibiByte, 1024KiloByte, 1000Hard disk KB is KiloByte.External Memory KB is KiloByte, or even Kb which is KiloBit.Microcontroller KB is KibiByte.Data speed KB is KibiByte, or Kb for KiloBit.It’s a problem.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 01:50:20 pm
content: 1024 bytes = 1 KiB (kibibyte)It depends on the standard used. For IEC it's 1kB = 1000 bytes, and for JEDEC it's 1kB = 1024 bytes.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 01:59:18 pm
content: C'mon, don't be so stingy, its only 24 bytes out of 1.000, thats still plenty.

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 02:01:33 pm
content: Humans have 10 fingers, then 1000 is ok.Robots has 8 fingers, it is 1024.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 02:03:44 pm
content: 24 bytes out of 1,000 (2.4%)48576 bytes out of 1,000,000 (4.9%)73741824 bytes out of 1,000,000,000 (7.4%)99511627776 bytes out of 1,000,000,000,000 (10%)Seems the more you buy the more they screw you overSays the guy with 100+TB's of storage....

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 02:11:45 pm
content: Yes it must be introduced by commercial humans.

author: MosherIV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 02:29:26 pm
content: I never knew it is called kibibyte.Yes, in computing world kB is 1024 (kibibyte)For other people (marketing of hdd) kilobyte is 1000 bytesHence the confusion.

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 03:14:30 pm
content: Or what about this one : mebibit.Are they serious : a maybebit.Just fire them persons.Quote from: Monkeh on August 31, 2019, 01:41:42 pmIt has always been 1024 per kilobyte, so why redefine system.Those who changed it are non-digital persons,i bet they could not evade computers any longer, since you cant live without no more.They started using computers and then changing things ?Lets not use the new system please, its to confusing.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 03:29:59 pm
content: Quote from: Jan Audio on August 31, 2019, 03:14:30 pmThe prefix kilo existed long before computers. It means 10³, or one thousand. It's that simple.To put it another way: There is no kilobyte. There is the unit (byte, which in itself is generally a multiplier of the unit bit), and the multiplier. You can have a kilo of bytes, which is 1000 bytes. You can have a mega of bytes, which is 1,000,000. You can have a kibi of bytes, which is 1024. The multiplier came long before the unit, so don't misuse it oryou create confusion.Let's say, in your crazy world, I wish to express that I have a thousand bytes. Not 1024, 1000. I should say kiloby- oh fuck, no, that means 1024 in your world, how do I say one thousand bytes?What if I want 1024 grams of flour? Is it okay to call that a kilogram?

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 03:35:45 pm
content: Always these precious people complaining about how unusual "mebibyte" looks or sounds. It doesn't matter, spoken language is generally loose so you can be vague about whether you mean 1000^2 or 1024^2. And if you want to be specific, you can say "you know, a power-of-2 style kilobyte" or "kibibyte". It's your choice, if you don't want to say kibibyte, no-one is forcing you to do so, snowflake.This is even more true with the abbreviated form: I just pop the extra "i" in there as appropriate, just to make my meaning as clear as possible. It's great that there is a standard in place allowing me to communicate clearly, heck, even if I have to put a little note at the heading of my doc saying "1 GB means X and 1 GiB means Y"; I could hardly think of a more succinct system of clarification myself.Quote from: Jan Audio on August 31, 2019, 03:14:30 pmShould we keep the imperial system around as well for you, because it's too hard to mentally adjust? Aww poor you. How about looking at the new state of things rather than complaining about the transition pains. How you could you possibly claim that "kilo always means 1000 regardless of field" is more confusing than "kilo means 1000 for all units other than bytes, and for bytes it kinda depends on IEC vs JEDEC and memory modules it means 1024 but for hard drives it means 1000"...In short, how does the addition of a new set of units (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB) with an utterly unambiguous definition make things more confusing for you? The fact that I have to think hard to figure out what kB means in any given context is a fact that predates the introduction of this new system; and will continue to be a problem (principally because of stubborn people like you). But as the new units become more and more prevalent, that just decreases the number of times I have to encounter this issue.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 03:42:43 pm
content: Yes please stick to the new umambiguous system the old one was a PITA, some stupid example from discussions with colleagues in the past:" kB means 1000 bytes, KB means 1024 bytes, kb means 1000 bits Kb means 1024 bits"So there was a difference between big Kilo and small kilo.And in the HW world it might be impossible to get devices with 1000bytes ram or rom multiples,But in software it is not trivial and easy to make mistakes to create an array of 1000 entries or 1024.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 03:43:31 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 31, 2019, 03:29:59 pmAbsolutely right. Even before we were talking about "kibi", the common "unit" for 1024 was uppercase K, while lowercase k IS the kilo multiplier (x1000). It's now recommended to write KiB instead of just KB to avoid confusion. But you'll still see "K" as in x1024 in many documents and datasheets, and it really means x1024, so be aware of that and use common sense and context when needed.As a side note, it makes me cringe when I see the "kilo" prefix written as bloody uppercase. It's not correct.https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.htmlMultliplier prefixes have a defined case for each. Try and use them correctly.

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 03:52:48 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 31, 2019, 03:29:59 pmIn my world i dont use 1000 bytes, it gives slow performance.If it was exact 1000, then it was a 1000 characters, not a kilo characters, can you eat that ?Or do you say 1,024 kilobytes ?

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 03:59:06 pm
content: A KB is 1024 bytes - period!In fact, the idea of the byte is based on a number system that isn't decimal (powers of 10) but binary (powers of 2). Why should 'kilo' prefix mean the same thing in two different number systems? When used with a binary based system, 'kilo' means 1024 - always and forever.We should have slapped the drive manufacturers when they tried to redefine the unit as a marketing ploy. Since, internally, sectors were still 512 B (half of a kB), they were flat out cheating their customers. The device itself used KB as 1024 (2 sectors). Too much code was written around the 512 byte sector to actually change them to 500 bytes. And 512 (or 1024) were selected because they ARE powers of two.As to IEC: It doesn't matter what they think. JEDEC is the proper standard and KB is 1024 bytes.Different number systems, different interpretations of the prefix. And, no, we're not going to develop decimal based computers any time soon. That has already been done and it is a niche market if not completely gone.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 04:25:16 pm
content: For hard drives, we got used with 1024 due to cpu cycles and memory constraints.Basically back then everything was made with multiples of two, in order to be able to make computations using bit shifting.Disk sectors were 512 bytes which is 29, clusters were multiple of 512 for example 4096 bytes which is 212.For an operating system like MS-DOS in the times of 8086 and < 1MB of memory, it was much easier, faster and cheaper memory wise to consider a KB as 1024 bytes, because it would allow them to quickly list the file sizes just by shifting bytesex Let's say a file size has 123456 bytes ( 0x01 E240 or 0b0000 0001 1110 0010 0100 0000)If you want to list the KB value, you can just shift 10 bits to the right to divide the number by 1024 (210= 1024) so you get0b0000 0001 1110 0010 0100 0000=> 0b0000 0001 1110 00 = 0b0000 0000 0111 1000 = 120 KiB (it's actually 120.56 kiB so technically 121 KiB but good enough for an 8086)FAT 16 and FAT32 also stored file sizes in multiples of sector size and cluster size so again bit shifting was used to calculate file sizes, remaining free disk space and so on ... it was only natural due to cpu cycle and memory constraints to use multiples of 1024 instead of 1000.Memory always used multiples as 8, due to the the memory bus on processors being 8 bits, then 16 bits, then 32 bits with 386, and now we have 64/128/256 bit with dual channel ddr4 / quad channelSo memory chips kept using multiples of 8, even though they advertise as 512 mbit , 1gbit etc etc1

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 04:25:38 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 31, 2019, 03:43:31 pmThe "K" for 1024 might be a workaround, but the concept fails with M or larger multipliers.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 04:30:45 pm
content: Quote from: mariush on August 31, 2019, 04:25:16 pmHard drive vendors use the SI prefixes (IEC standard) to specify the storage size for quite a while.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 04:39:03 pm
content: Quote from: madires on August 31, 2019, 04:25:38 pmIt's not a workaround. It probably seemed reasonable at the time to use K instead of k (whereas there was no "free" prefix for > 2^10), but refer to rstofer post. It's just not the same reference. Binary size units ARE NOT part of the SI units, they don't have to follow the same rules.Yes it introduces some confusion, which, as rstofer said, was mainly used as a marketing trick in the storage device industry. They suddenly were pretty much the only ones in the computer industry concerned with using proper SI units. How convenient.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 04:56:57 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on August 31, 2019, 03:59:06 pmBlasphemy!QuoteIt did not even came from computer science , it came from electronics standardization.So it doesn't matter what you think in your universe, just accept it, it is done for over twenty years and is the way students learn it already for the last generation, it is the single and only true definition.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 05:12:49 pm
content: Quote from: madires on August 31, 2019, 04:30:45 pmI know that. I was referring to Microsoft and other operating system developers who decided to compromise and use 1024 instead of 1024 while saying KB and MB, because it improved the performance of the programs by a significant amount and reduced the memory and disk space used.Of course hard drives were sold and specified in millions of bytes, not as multiples of 1024 ... though it's worth noting that even back then most were factory formatted to use 512 byte sectors and clusters using powers of two... some bytes were inadvertently left out, unused, because drive may not have an exact multiple of 512 bytes of actual capacity.

author: NivagSwerdna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 05:39:12 pm
content: kibibyte ROFL... established by International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 1998Real engineers know a k is an SI unit... 1000, and a K is 1024 in KB context.What is the world coming to!

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 05:43:49 pm
content: By abuse of language, in computer science, 1K is generally 2^10, 1M is 2^20, ... But you can not complain if a 1TB hardisk is really 10^12 bytes and not 2^40 bytes

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 05:48:11 pm
content: Quote from: ggchab on August 31, 2019, 05:43:49 pmWell, you could, because according to the common industry language, it's misleading at best. And that said, when a HD manufacturer says 1TB, it's often not even exactly 10^12 bytes, but just something close to that.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 05:53:09 pm
content: Quote from: NivagSwerdna on August 31, 2019, 05:39:12 pmSo what do real engineers know M is? G?Real engineers should know k is not a unit at all, and K is kelvin.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 06:50:41 pm
content: I always thought that capitals were used for multiplying prefixes and lower case for divider prefixes. i have had this prblem before being assured that it's lower case for kbps but i don't get it becasue no one uses mbps do they? T, G, M, K, unit, m, µ, n, p, Am I missing something here?I think the problem is that nich uses have developed there own standards. And context is always important which is part of what training in engineering is all about. Anyone should know that "K" alone is kelvin particularly as it will be stated alonside the word temperature or some other contextual informatiol like being on a thermometer?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 07:17:49 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on August 31, 2019, 06:50:41 pmThat's as accurate as "i before e except after c".QuoteYes, you are missing things.Transmission rates from deep space probes can be measured in mbps (mb/s).For a tabular definition of SI prefixes, seehttp://mathworld.wolfram.com/SIPrefixes.htmlAnd my pet hate is people that measure time in units of conductance.QuoteThe core problems are that people are lazy and under educated, so they re-invent wheels poorly and make them elliptical - and confuse everybody.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 07:20:28 pm
content: is it lower case for bits and capitals for bytes?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 07:23:55 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on August 31, 2019, 07:20:28 pmYes, b is bit and B is byte. m is milli and M is mega. k is kilo and K is not a prefix, it's a unit.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 07:26:23 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 31, 2019, 07:23:55 pmYou missed my point, I was talking about the prefixes. So nom mb/s can be mega or milli depending on how you feel? didn't I say it's all about context and preference?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 07:28:12 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on August 31, 2019, 07:26:23 pmNo, m is milli, M is mega. There is no preference or context here: lowercase is milli, uppercase is mega. mb is millibits, mB is millibytes, Mb is megabits, MB is megabytes. This is insanely simple and only confusing because people are too lazy to hit one of the three different keys they can use to enter an uppercase character.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 07:37:42 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 31, 2019, 04:56:57 pmThe modern generation of students don't even know which bathroom to use.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 07:43:40 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on August 31, 2019, 07:37:42 pmI was going to make some rather dark comments about other changes in the world, but I'll let people fill in the blanks for themselves.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 07:57:13 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on August 31, 2019, 07:17:49 pmAnother tidbit is the misuse of baud when people are talking about data transfer rates.

author: Yansi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 08:09:15 pm
content: IEC should f!ck themselves in a foot, with their ibibytes.I have, I do and will always use the 1024 multiplier with SI units, when talking computers and bytes.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 09:34:15 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on August 31, 2019, 07:37:42 pmYou sound like Platoand the lesson is if you don't want or can't understand the next generation, you probably are old , stubborn or about to become obsolete.Everyone can complain but that is just a sign of refusing change. And without change...... we would still live in caves.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 10:14:20 pm
content: Quote from: madires on August 31, 2019, 07:57:13 pmMost people don't even know what the definition of baud is, which is symbols per second. Which is not the same as bit rate except in the specific scenario of having only two symbols (0 and 1). And for anyone who says those are the only two possible symbols in the analog world, they are very incorrect.But back to the original subject:The reality is, the IEC terminology came after the abuse of the SI terms were well established, even if they were confusing in some cases. And the general publicand more importantly advertisersdo NOT use those words, as a rule, prefering either the SI or the JEDEC definition. So it's really context based, and you can't answer the question without the context.For instance if:the context is hard drives, the advertised size is generally decimal based. e.g. 1 TB = 1000**4the context is RAM, the advertised size is binary based. e.g. 1 GB = 1024**3

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 10:20:09 pm
content: 1024 bytes is a kilobyte. This Kibibyte nonsense is just revisionist bullshit.This happened because disk drive makers tried to sell drives with 1,000,000,000 bytes as terabyte drives rather than 1,073,741,824 bytes.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 10:24:23 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 31, 2019, 10:14:20 pmSo what is your point?Improvements are always made after the fact that they are needed in practice because there is for instance ambiguity in the use of terms.In your example what is the definition for a battery backed up SRAM disk used as a hard drive replacement ? Its ambiguous.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 10:35:21 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 31, 2019, 10:24:23 pmOne of my points is that the OP's question of "What is a kilobyte?" does not have a fixed answer without context.It's like asking "What is a gallon?" without mentioning the country of reference.My other point is that language is not defined by some standards organization, however well meant, it's defined by how people actually use the words in the real world. Try looking up kilobyte in various dictionaries, which are far more responsive to actual usage than technical correctness.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 10:40:24 pm
content: The whole point is too eliminate ambiguity.If a chinese firm asks an european firm in the requirements for a 122880 byte buffer it is precise and unambiguous.If it said 120kB or 120KB it should not pass the review IMO.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 10:54:08 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 31, 2019, 10:40:24 pmAnd there your context is contract writing, which is solved either by writing out in an unambiguous manner like you did or by including a definitions section that defines the terms.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 10:59:02 pm
content: Yes, we've screwed up and now context is needed where it should not be. Let's just leave it, everything is fine, we're used to it. Nothing needs to ever improve.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:07:24 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 31, 2019, 09:34:15 pmThere is a difference between change and improvement.We poor oldtimers, living with JEDEC, were doing just fine until the IEC came along. We knew what we meant when we said kilobyte or megabyte. There was never a question until the drive manufacturers collaborated with the IEC to cheat their customers and have that European based agency encourage them. When I ordered a 1Kx8 EEPROM, I knew it would have exactly 1024 bytes. There was never a question. What could I possibly do with a bunch of 1000 byte EPROMs?It's like that old argument between Imperial and Metric - the US will NEVER go metric. Sure, the science people will use metric but it's worth noting that Structural Engineering is done in kips. Electrical Engineering and most Mechanical Engineering is also done in imperial units. Air motion is in CFM - cubic feet per minute. Water flow is in GPM - gallons per minute. And that's the way it's going to stay!

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:19:01 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on August 31, 2019, 11:07:24 pmAhh, it's us dirty Europeans and our ways now, trying to rob the US of its greatness.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:21:06 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 31, 2019, 11:19:01 pm

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:26:52 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on August 31, 2019, 11:07:24 pmMetrification IS happening in the US by default, it's just going to take a long time, or at least until more of the older generations (likely including myself) die off. The US really is the odd man out, world-wide, being the only significant hold-out. Most industries are allowed to voluntarily convert any time they want. For instance, in the food industry, it's been a long time since you've seen 2-quart soda bottles. But 2-liter bottles are everywhere! Virtually everything food-related is dual-labeled, no matter what its base size is.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:31:25 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 31, 2019, 01:41:42 pmByte is not an SI unit. Please do not arbitrarily redefine systems which existed long before your use case.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:36:18 pm
content: I will start using K=1000 for memory when they start selling 2767108864 EPROMs and hard drives start using 500 and 4000 byte sectors.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:39:13 pm
content: Quote from: David Hess on August 31, 2019, 11:36:18 pmNobody is asking you to use multiples of 1000. Just to use a prefix which correctly expresses what you're doing, instead of a misappropriated one which leads to confusion.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:43:11 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 31, 2019, 05:48:11 pmThe hard drive manufacturers made the change before Eternal September so you will not find much on the internet about it. Initially they measured capacity like the memory manufacturers but then one got the bright idea of using 1000 in place of 1024 which made their capacity seem greater and the rest is history. There were complaints about it in the trade magazines at the time.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:45:22 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 31, 2019, 11:39:13 pmMany applications require it now and the mass storage manufacturers do.How about having everybody stop using bytes and instead use Libraries of Congress? Or is that an SI unit also?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:55:01 pm
content: Quote from: David Hess on August 31, 2019, 11:45:22 pmSuch as?QuoteYes, well, at least they're using the prefix correctly. I do wish they'd just switch to the more appropriate prefix and with it the nominal sizes, but..

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2019, 11:55:45 pm
content: Quote from: David Hess on August 31, 2019, 11:31:25 pmCorrect it is defined as the smallest addressable unit of memory and can be anything from 6-48 bits.You want to go back to that definition?Luckiliy the IEC has defined it to "usually 8 bits" in 1993 in ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteBut perhaps our american friends want to deviate from that to ?Then in systems with parity bits one usually defines a byte as 9 bits , it is a mess isn't it ?Perhaps we should abandon the byte and only use bitsQuote from: rstofer on August 31, 2019, 11:07:24 pmWhat did Jedec define please give me the standard.Before ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993 it was undefined, at least the common use was as much bits as a character needed in an architecture so between 6 and 48 bits.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 12:43:02 am
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 31, 2019, 11:26:52 pmThose highway signs in km didn't last long, did they?We use imperial units and we have been to the moon and back. The rest of the world uses metric and can't get out of Earth's orbit. See the correlation? The metric system stunts technological growth.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 12:47:31 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on September 01, 2019, 12:43:02 am

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 12:59:47 am
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 31, 2019, 11:55:45 pm1993 is 'Johnny come lately' in the computer world. We were using byte, kilobytes and megabytes for decades before IEC came along. Somehow we managed to build stuff without getting confused. We didn't need 'kibbles'.FWIW, the Baudot code for characters was 5 bits (plus a start and stop bit). Of course there had to be a couple of shift characters to shift between Letters and Figures. It was invented in 1870 and Baud is named for the inventor.The CDC 6400 used a 60 bit word and I'm not aware that it could be fetched in anything other than full width words. There were 30 bit instructions and 15 bit instructions packed in 60 bit words. Ten chars per word and 18 bits for addressing. Extracting a char from the middle of a 60 bit word was a problem for years before CDC added the 'compare move' unit to address the needs of business programmers using COBOL.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 01:28:44 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on September 01, 2019, 12:43:02 amYeah. You went to the moon using a metric computer.Please grow up.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 01:38:23 am
content: Quote from: Simon on August 31, 2019, 06:50:41 pmYes, you are missing something. There are a set of prefixes used for SI (Système international d'unitésor International system of units), which are standardized for use within this system. You have (T)era, (G)iga, (M)ega, (k)ilo, m(illi), (μ)icro, (n)ano, (p)ico, etc. (Notice how they ran out of m's and had to switch to Greek?)This set of prefixes are used for quoting physical measurements in the SI (metric) system.Other prefixes are used in other contexts. For example, in U.S. customary usage, M often means 1000, and MM means one million. So, for example, 1 MMbbl/d is one million barrels per day, and 1 MMscf/h is one million standard cubic feet per hour.Therefore, we can question whether "bits" in computing are part of the SI system, and should use SI prefixes. Clearly there are other historical conventions with other usages. Since computing uses powers of two (for good reasons), the convention since the beginning has been that in computing the "K" and "M" prefixes are powers of two, namely 210and 220.According to which culture and convention one is working with, "M" could mean 1 000 000 , 1000, or 1024.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 01:39:15 am
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 31, 2019, 11:55:45 pmThat is a word. Words have machine dependent width.QuoteSo having screwed up, the IEC doubles down and gets involved redefining established standards. "Usually 8 bits" is a terribly useful definition. Can I blame the IEC for furthering type confusion in programming?

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 02:22:37 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on September 01, 2019, 12:43:02 amClassic example of a strawman argument. But since we're on the subject, Nasa went metric about 30 years ago, at least for new technology. And the claim that only we can leave the earths orbit is simply false:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_probes

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 02:31:47 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 01, 2019, 01:28:44 amI worked in a machine shop that built a LOT of ground support equipment for NASA circa '65. All of the dimension were imperial. AFAIK, none of the machine tools had metric scales.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 02:33:17 am
content: 256MB of RAM is 2^28 bytes, not 256 * 10^6 bytes, and contains exactly 2^(28-12) = 2^16 4KB pages. Everything is powers of 2 and calculates nicely.With hard drives, sectors are still a power of 2 in size (usually 512 = 2^9, newer ones may have 4K = 2^12 physical sectors) but you get cheated, because you can't e.g. write all the bytes in 4GB of RAM exactly 10 times to a 40GB hard drive.With flash storage, it used to be the case that a flash drive would be a precise power of 2 size (e.g. a 64MB U disk would really store 2^26 bytes), but now they are starting to become "non-binary" again...Don't even get me started on those stupid-sounding binary prefixes

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 02:48:24 am
content: the non binary of flash drives came from needing a fraction of the flash memory to swap out as bad blocks formed, and to get marginal memory over the line, so while my SSD has enough flash chips to be exactly 128GiB, it ends up 120GB with a decent volume hidden for caching and bad block management.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 02:54:53 am
content: Comms bandwidth is (nearly) always in metric.So a 8Gb/s link will never transfer a gigabyte per second (even before protocol overhead).

author: SparkyFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 03:11:34 am
content: Quote from: Rerouter on September 01, 2019, 02:48:24 amAnd the file system will take an additional toll for the organizational part (journaling, file information), now try explaining to the average buyer why not all specified storage can be used (the impact is iirc higher than kB/kiB).A useful answer to these problems would be: express yourself in a way you can not be misunderstood, at least know the difference between the two. That´s more important than questioning the legitimacy of a unit.Actually there could be a workaround by stating the width of the address in bits, because "the nearest to 1000" is a decimal approach within a binary system, which does not make much sense in the first place. OTOH it might not tell you the amount of addressable space.Quote from: hamster_nz on September 01, 2019, 02:54:53 amThe telecommunication people relate their specs to Hertz, which would be impractical using a binary system otherwise.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 09:22:27 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on August 31, 2019, 11:07:24 pmOld town halls over here have some special wall stones defining how large the local cubit is.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 09:25:25 am
content: Quote from: David Hess on August 31, 2019, 11:36:18 pmLower case k!

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 09:49:53 am
content: Quote from: amyk on September 01, 2019, 02:33:17 am"Why doesn't 4GB fit into 40GB ten times?" "Because GB means different things for RAM and Hard drives"Let me show how I would write this:Quote from: myself on September 01, 2019, 02:33:17 am"Why doesn't 4GiB fit into 40GB ten times?" "Because40GB / 4GiB = 9.31..."I understand as well as anyone that there's a huge backlog of documentation using the 1MB=2^20 bytes definition lying around. But it's fabulous being able to concisely jump between 2^30 and 10^9 as simply as jumping between "GiB" and "GB", and even the most ardently change-averse among you must surely concede that you can read + understand my version perfectly well, even if you think I'm weird. I'd wager most people would understand the point being made more rapidly as well.So for me, that's all there is to it. I choose to communicate in the clearest and most unambiguous way possible, and so I personally make use of the new power-of-2 prefixes precisely because they are completely unambiguous. I'm not sure how whinging and whining about how weird "Mebibyte" sounds makes the world a better place in any way; like it or not, it's here to stay.Fun side question: what is the proposed new way to represent plain integers, like 4096, succintly? 4Ki?

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 02:15:12 pm
content: I dont wanted to start a fight, just a poll, where is the add poll button ?

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 02:49:21 pm
content: The button "new poll" is next to the "new topic" button:

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 03:04:31 pm
content: Kibibytes, mebibytes, gibibytes, tebibytes, pebibytes, etc? Really? LOL.And GB wasn't an island?

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 03:27:50 pm
content: What is the frequency of a 32KHz quartz ?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 03:56:47 pm
content: Quote from: ggchab on September 01, 2019, 03:27:50 pmInsufficient information to answer; give a full part number, not half a part number.Hint: KHz is not a unit of frequency.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 07:17:21 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on September 01, 2019, 03:56:47 pmAlmost always 32768Hz. This has been true since the earliest days of quartz timepieces, and while you can order a 32000Hz crystal, that would be in the minority of applications (and I can't think of any at the moment.)

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 10:03:23 pm
content: 32 kibiHertz?

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 10:58:55 pm
content: kibibyte ... what the hell is kibibyteglad i saw this thread before i dieKilobyte = 1024

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 11:07:25 pm
content: Quote from: hamdi.tn on September 01, 2019, 10:58:55 pmKibble:https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kibbleBite:https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biteKibibyte: a bite of kibble

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2019, 11:42:34 pm
content: This is a simple matter of context. Anyone with any experience simply doesn't confuse the two.Kilo = 1024 when in the context of computer software/firmware (addressing, memory, capacity)Kilo = 1000 for all other contexts (volts, resistance, current, money, distance, etc.)The disk drive manufacturers cheated on this a long time ago and should have been publicly humiliated for doing it. They sort of ended up humiliating themselves... ever see the contorted "explanation" of what they meant by disk capacity in their spec sheets? Anything that requires that much explanation deserves skepticism. And for what... a 2.4% "improvement" in specsmanship?!? Idiots.BTW, you can have this argument about the definition of "word" too. The most commonly accepted one is 16 bits (two bytes). But "word" can also refer to the native data size on a given architecture. So you can have 8 bit words, 12 bit words, 32 bit words, etc. I vigorously resist calling anything but a 16 bit quantity a "word" but I acknowledge that it's done and can't argue that it's wrong, just potentially confusing. This use of the term "word" is rather specific to electronic hardware and software, but you cannot say the same about the prefix "kilo" (or "mega" or any of the others). The decimal based kilo entered the lexicon long before we had the binary based kilo, and while it might have been nice to standardize on unique and dedicated binary prefixes - we didn't. It's just one of those things that you "know" by being in the discipline.I've been dong hardware and software for over four decades. Never once have I ever confused the two definitions of kilo. I've never evenwitnessedanyone confusing them. With all due respect, I don't know why this is even a thread topic. Go try to convince a bank - or a court - that when you agreed to accept $50K in payment what you really expected was precisely $51,200.00. Or tell Keysight that their AWG is out of calibration because when you entered "5 - 0 - KHz" it didn't generate a 51,200.0 Hz waveform.Bonus: A nibble (or as I prefer to spell it, a nybble) is four bits, aka one hex digit, aka one half of a byte ("the high order nybble", etc.).Now if you want to have a real language discussion, let's talk about auto-antonyms... words that are their ownoppositesdepending upon context. Consider "fast". You probably believe this implies motion or speed, but what about "color fast", or "making a rope fast to that cleat"? Or, indeed, the root of the word "fastening"? Need more? How about "counsel" as a verb... it's the same word whether you're giving it or receiving it. There are lots more.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 01:42:52 am
content: Quote from: amyk on September 01, 2019, 07:17:21 pmYou might order a 32.000kHz crystal oscillator for a clock circuit which uses BCD instead of binary dividers and I am sure I have seen that.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 03:21:04 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 01, 2019, 11:42:34 pmBut we did. Perhaps you'd like to use them.I appreciate these standards are a little newer than you, but it doesn't make them any less valid or sensible, and if people just got on with using them the issue would simply fade away in time.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 03:36:28 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 02, 2019, 03:21:04 amYou missed my point. I said "itmight have beennice to standardize on unique and dedicated binary prefixes."Yes, they exist - but very few people use them, and in general they elicit ridicule (as evidenced even in this thread!). We COULD have standardized on them, but we didn't, and now... like the QWERTY keyboard... the dual use of kilo/mega/etc. is kind of baked into the industry.If you want to be the Dvorak keyboard of multiplier prefixes, smug in your certainty of your superiority, go for it. Technically you'll be correct. But you'll be forever distracted by explaining yourself ("WTF are you talking about?!?") rather than just getting on with the project. You'll probably also get a reputation as "that guy".I agree the terms were created. Nobody used them and they never caught on. That time has passed.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 04:03:26 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 02, 2019, 03:36:28 amPeople do use them. Increasingly. Large projects (which you depend on, every single day, in tens of thousands of deployments) use them instead of doing it wrong. Major consumer systems stopped using prefixes incorrectly (rather than introduce the new prefix. An acceptable compromise for the non-technical.). Pretty much everyone in the technical world already knows about the new units, so you are not 'forever distracted by explaining yourself'.It's not too late. You can learn. You can do better. You can switch to 240V like everyone else, stop using red 'blinkers', and employ metric units in daily life, too, if you justbloody well get on with it.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 04:24:23 am
content: How interesting that you seldom see these new prefixes in literature. Haven't seen one in anything consumer, prosumer, nor professional. Not in device spec sheets. Not in technical ads for any component nor system. Haven't heard them come up in any discussion, in person nor online, except this thread. If they're catching on, they're hiding it well!Hey, I've got no issue with them. If and when they become prevalent, I'll use them. But I'm not going to confuse and clutter my interpersonal communication just to be pedantic about a non-problem. As I said, I've literally never had nor witnessed any misunderstanding on this topic. Why waste time on it?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 05:12:23 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 02, 2019, 04:24:23 amApple converted to correct usage of decimal prefixes a decade ago. Linux and the GNU userland either use dual units or binary prefixes by default. HP specify the correct usage of binary or decimal prefixes for storage systems to avoid confusion in their best practice guides. NIST guidelines require the use of binary prefixes (SP811)..They are already common everywhere but your datasheets. This is thanks to JEDEC. And I quote from JESD100B.01:QuoteRather open to interpretation. Seems to support binary prefixes without bothering to apply any standards at all. Perhaps we should just use the clear standards?

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 05:20:52 am
content: It takes time but it will be used.Now wait till the americans understand they need to put the little i inbetween instead of reverting back to their KB and call that a KibiByte

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 05:58:54 am
content: Well, that does it. I'm defining IEC PI = 3.0, JEDEC PI = 3.1415926...

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 06:00:08 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 02, 2019, 03:21:04 amThey are only barely newer than me and yet I maintain that if HDD manufacturers and Apple simply got on with using the established units the issue would simply not exist in the first place

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 06:03:34 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 01, 2019, 11:42:34 pmThe first computer I used had (and has - there is at least one still operating) 39-bit words. Another important one had 12 bit words, and there are many othersQuoteThat's a "Humpty Dumpty" use of the wordQuoteYes indeed.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 06:16:19 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on September 02, 2019, 06:03:34 amThat's a very strange number of bits. Systems like the PDP-10 and many IBM mainframes used 36 bit words since it divided evenly into groups of 6 bit characters. Other systems used 12 or 18 bit words for similar reasons.But what on Earth had 39 bits?

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 06:24:23 am
content: The fun part of all this is even if folks could popularize the use of binary prefixes, it still would not solve the problem I described. Kibi might be unambiguous, but forevermore when someone says kilo you will have to clarify "Which one?". The damage is done. The only way to actually solve the problem is to also eliminate the use of the existing decimal prefixes, and create new ones. Good luck.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 06:29:29 am
content: Quote from: IanB on September 02, 2019, 06:16:19 amElliott 803/903 and similar. They were commercially important, and CAR (Tony) Hoare (I'm sure you know that name) developed a highly influential Algol60 compiler for them.The world's first computer used for commercial operations had 35 bit words. (LEO 1, used from 1951 for stock control in teashops - seriously).CDC 6600 had 60 bit words, ICL1900 had 24 bit words.No doubt there are many others.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 07:12:14 am
content: This table from Computer Architecture - Concepts and Evolution by Blaauw and Brooks is interesting in several ways. It lists a wide variety of computer architectures, it uses both "k" definitions, and it explicitly lists the radix of the machine, which is used to define which "k" is being used.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrit_Blaauwhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 08:04:24 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on September 01, 2019, 03:56:47 pmWhat, "Hertz" is not the unit of frequency ? Could you please explain ?

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 08:23:16 am
content: Quote from: ggchab on September 02, 2019, 08:04:24 amK vs k.Absolute temperature vs Boltzmann constant.As part of the 2019 redefinition of SI base units, the Boltzmann constant is one of the seven "defining constants" that have been given exact definitions.Wasn't that in Strange Things 2 as the safe combination?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 08:27:37 am
content: This isn't stackexchange, so let's restate the context...Quote from: tggzzz on September 01, 2019, 03:56:47 pmQuote from: ggchab on September 02, 2019, 08:04:24 am"Hertz" is, of course, the SI unit of frequency."k" is the SI prefix indicating 1000.I do hope you don't also incorrectly think "S" is the unit of time.

author: Moshly
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 08:58:55 am
content: This is so dumb and has done my head in ever since I heard of it.In decimal 1K = 1000 (nice round number) 1000 in binary = 11 1110 1000 <- not very rounded.In binary 1KB = 100 0000 0000 (nice round number but long) or in decimal 1024 (not so nice)In binary 1MB = 1 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 (nice round number but very long) or in decimal 1048576 (not nice but a lot shorter)Its a bit like the difference between 1/3 and 0.333333333333333333333333->One is nice & neat, the other stretches off to infinity.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 09:09:22 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on September 02, 2019, 08:27:37 amContext is everything when arguing that "kB" strictly means 1000 bytes and not 1024 bytes... which was my point in mentioning 'k' was also used in the SI system for the Boltzmann constant. The same symbol can mean different things in different contexts, but you have to know the context you are using it in.However, I do strongly agree that KHz is wrong, but close enough for jazz and nothing to get worked up over.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 09:17:31 am
content: KHz is obviously the SI unit of rate of change of temperature.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 09:19:01 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 02, 2019, 04:24:23 amI've written a software package which outputs file sizes as part of its job. Six years ago I added configuration switches to allow each user to select his preferred prefixes. The default setting is classic binary prefixes with the multiplier of 1024. First alternative is SI prefixes with a multiplier of 1000, and the second is IEC prefixes (Ki/Mi/...) with a multiplier of 1024. This isn't anything brand new, still not many are aware of it.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 09:19:31 am
content: Quote from: hamster_nz on September 02, 2019, 09:09:22 amJust so.But in the context of this thread, it is worth getting that particular LART out

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 01:02:14 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on September 02, 2019, 05:20:52 amAt a certain point in time I have seem capital K as "kibi", thus this may only attest to the ruling confusion in the wild.Quote from: tggzzz on September 02, 2019, 06:29:29 amThe F28x family of DSPs from TI have 16-bit bytes. A word would be 32-bits.In the x86 world, it used to be customary to mention that 16-bit was a word, with the cousins Double word (32-bit) and Quad word (64-bit). I am not sure if that is still the case (I haven't revisited the x86-64 assembly).The microchip MCUs that I worked with had 14-bit bytes on the program memory bus.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 01:20:58 pm
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on September 02, 2019, 01:02:14 pmI hadn't seen "kibibyte" before this thread.It reminds me of a meme from a couple of decades on usenet... people objected to the use of "he" and "she", invented "hir" as a gender-neutral word and tried to insist everybody used it. Clearly it had escaped them that there was an existing alternative that worked perfectly well: "their".QuoteI thought of seeing what some of the harvard architecture MCUs did, and decided my examples were sufficientlystrange

author: Canis Dirus Leidy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 02:23:11 pm
content: Whole thread in a single question of RU.OS.CMP FAQ:Q50: And what does a byte look like?A50: Ever looking through a punch card?

author: splin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 04:49:53 pm
content: Quote from: Canis Dirus Leidy on September 02, 2019, 02:23:11 pmThe answer looks like it could be amusing, profound or perhaps sarcastic but only speaking English I've no idea what it means. Can anybody translate?

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 06:26:51 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on September 02, 2019, 01:20:58 pmKibi was new for me as well, in Swedden Hir or as they say here "hen" been implemented for some years now particularly and frequently used by fake news and their so called journalists, symboled like this, giving the picture thatif a she and hi copulate they produce a hen, i.e a probable soyboy gender bended trans bi pan sexual creature of sort!

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 10:16:19 pm
content: Quote from: splin on September 02, 2019, 04:49:53 pmIt has to do with the historical definition of the byte, coined in the late 1950's, which was originally defined as the number of bits used to represent a character. On IBM punch cards, which are way older than that definition, the most common version of which had 12 rows x 80 columns, each column represented a character. Or a 12-bit byte. You can look up Hollerith code if you want to know more about that. The code was designed not to put too many holes in the card, since the card would lose physical integrity and jam card-readers if you did so.Many of the early computers did not use 8-bit bytes. 6 was actually quite common for a while, although there were other sizes. The IBM 704 had a 36-bit word and 6-bit bytes. The PDP-8 had a 12-bit word and 6-bit bytes. The Cyber 6600 had a 60 bit word and 6-bit bytes. And if you ever wondered why languages have provision for octal as well as hexadecimal, it's because 2 octal digits are a convenient human-readable representation of a 6-bit byte.It wasn't until the processors of the late 1970's became widespread that the general use of the word became specifically 8 bits.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2019, 10:31:56 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on September 02, 2019, 10:16:19 pmSo does *anybody* these days use "byte" to mean anything other than 8 bits? Personally, I'm not planning to travel back in time, so I'm comfortable with the 8-bit byte. And with K = 1024 when used in context. Context is critical.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 06:58:45 am
content: Gimme a few more bytes, honey.

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 08:01:25 am
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 02, 2019, 10:31:56 pmThe French translation of the term "byte" is "octet" which clearly contains "8"

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 09:36:09 am
content: And the English translation of "octet" is "octet" too.That just means that the French have no concept of byte at all.

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 12:04:51 pm
content: I did not know the word "octet" was also used in English !But you're right: the exact French translation of "byte" is "multiplet" and "octet" is a byte of 8 bit.

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 12:16:10 pm
content: I always wonder why it is 8 bit everywhere, i dont complain just wondering.Compatibility issues ?

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 12:20:02 pm
content: You will see a lot of "octets" when you start reading computer networking standards. Many of them date back to dinosaur era; some well-defined and unambiguous unit was required to specify how data are to be transported over network and "byte" certainly wasn't that

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 03:20:15 pm
content: Quote from: Jan Audio on September 03, 2019, 12:16:10 pmMaybebecause some systems used BCD (binary coded decimal) in the past ?I think some HP calculators used this format.4 bits were used to store a decimal digit (0 to 9). So, 8 bits could store 2 digits.Of course, more bits are required to store a value but results are a lot easier to display.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 04:40:58 pm
content: More from the originator of "Byte" with context of the times:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Buchholzhttps://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1977-02/1977_02_BYTE_02-02_Usable_Systems#page/n145/mode/2up

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2019, 09:20:42 pm
content: Quote from: Tomorokoshi on September 03, 2019, 04:40:58 pmVery cool term he uses in that letter to the editor: "respelled". I'm adopting it into my personal lexicon!This settles the (minor) question of whether the term "byte" could apply to anything other than a group of eight bits. And it's already been firmly established that "word" is similarly context-sensitive.So is "kilo". As I said in my first post in this thread, context matters. Anyone with any experience in this industry won't misunderstand the numeric multiplier meant by the prefix kilo, based on context. I've never misunderstood it, I've never witnessed it being misunderstood, and I suspect the only people who "misunderstand" it do so for psuedo-nefarious purposes (read: Marketing) or pedanticism, like arguing about Oxford commas.Let it go. "Kilo" is a non-problem.

author: mikerj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 08:56:09 am
content: Quote from: magic on September 03, 2019, 12:20:02 pmWhen referring to ordering why is it always least/most significant byte rather than octet? Is octet only used in a specific context?

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 10:25:42 am
content: Depends on whom you ask.If you look at theIPv4spec, for example, they only talk about most significant bits and most significant octets.Although figure 10 is titled "transmission order of bytes"Most of the time no one cares about making a distinction because all general purpose computers have 8 bit bytes.AFAIK in modern hardware problems only exist in some DSPs where the smallest unit of data might be 16 bits or more.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 02:46:29 pm
content: Long story short - KB (/MB/GB/...) is usually a non-issue in most cases given the appropriate context.When it deals with binary *size*, it's a power of two multiplier in most cases (except in the storage industry...), and when it's about data throughput (such as in KB/s), it's already a lot more ambiguous and needs even more context or an appropriate definition (although again in the case of "K", there's this distinction with lowercase and uppercase, but there isn't for the higher multipliers... so that becomes ambiguous.)I thus personally don't have a problem with the IEC standardization (even though I don't like the "kibi" term, but who cares, and btw, how do you spell MiB, GiB, ...? Is that MeBi, GiBi, ...?)If there's even the slightest possibility of ambiguity, I think standardizing things is a sane idea. Just stating that "it's so obvious that it doesn't need that" is not very satisfying from an engineering POV.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 03:47:55 pm
content: All this thread proves is that when a new "standard" is established, it takes more than 20 years for the general public to even hear about it, never mind follow it. Yes, that's how new those words are; they didn't exist before 1998 (I've been abusing computers since 1960). There are plenty of science units that have been around for centuries the general public never adopted. You just have to go with the flow and use context.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 07:05:35 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on September 04, 2019, 03:47:55 pmI'm not too concerned with the general public, but with engineers and practitioners skilled in the art. For my entire professional career a kilobyte has been understood to mean 1024 8-bit bytes, and a megabyte = 1024 * 1024 8-bit bytes. Perhaps in some specialized corners of science and engineering these words have other meanings, but I've never heard them being used.And for what it's worth a megabit per second = 1,000,000 bits/s.Context is critical. Usage in the profession is what matters. Let me know when kibibyte shows up in actual practice and I will consider changing my mind.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 08:33:07 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 04, 2019, 07:05:35 pmYep!QuoteYep!QuoteYep!And $450K is exactly $450,000.00, not $460,800.00. I'm confident no one, ever, has argued that they're owed an extra 2.4% because of the trailing K. I'd love to watch the judge's face if someone tried to sue on that basis.QuotePrecisely. This is a "solution" in search of a problem. To the layman, K = 1000. Only those in specific technical disciplines know there's another definition for "kilo" and they don't get confused preciselybecausethey're in those specific technical disciplines. If it's considered a problem, it's a self-solving one by virtue of people understanding the context.Thread over. There's literally nothing left to discuss. (Of course I thought that was true about three pages ago yet here we are on page 6.)

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 11:17:17 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 04, 2019, 08:33:07 pmThere can in fact be no discussion with people unwilling to discuss. Congratulations, you 'win'.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 11:26:04 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 04, 2019, 11:17:17 pmThere's no "win" here. There was never even a legitimate controversy. The facts are self-evident, as was noted here multiple times.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2019, 11:58:09 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 04, 2019, 11:26:04 pmIt just depends which set of facts you put weight in.I put weight in established (little as you may like it), technically correct, unambiguous standards. You put weight in "We've always done it this way".It took decades for people to stop using condenser as well. No doubt there were many vocal parties against the newfangled and unneccesary term of capacitor.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 12:24:21 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 04, 2019, 11:58:09 pmI put value on getting things done and not wasting time worrying about terminology that nobody gets wrong.I have a saying: "Focus on the deliverable." Since "kilo" isn't broken (as conclusively proven by this thread), arguing about it is nothing more than a distraction from things that truly matter. From actual deliverables that employ people, ship product, and push the marker forward.You're welcome to spend your time fighting the battles you select. As for me, I will continue to valueactual accomplishmentover pedantic arguments over non-problems. You took a cheap shot at my age a while back ("I appreciate these standards are a little newer than you"), but maybe the ability to properly prioritize is something that comes with age, eh?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 12:30:31 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 05, 2019, 12:24:21 amAh, but with youth comes the ability to adapt, improve, and cast away the legacy of our stubborn predecessors.I notice you ignored my valid point about other terminology which has been changed. I don't see that 'condenser' was 'broken' by your definition, and yet it was changed for clarity. It took about 50 years, but it's pretty much a dead term now. And eventually we'll be rid of your misuse of a prefix over two centuries old (along with the newer ones). It's just going to take a while.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 01:00:50 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 05, 2019, 12:30:31 amIt was a valid point, so it didn't need comment.QuoteAnd as others observed herein, if and when these other prefixes become the norm, I and they will adopt them. But in the meantime, they're nothing more than a needless distraction from more important things. Demanding their use actually INCREASES confusion and wastes time, as in "WTF did you say?", when "kilobyte" would have been understood by everyone in the conversation. Even you, if you'll be honest enough to admit it.Can you cite any examples of where kilo has truly been misunderstood? No one in six pages of this thread has shared such an incident. Why create delay and obfuscation when it's entirely unnecessary?Edit: The fact that kilo continues to be used, without incident, provides the answer to the question of why kibi et. al haven't "caught on yet". If there was an actual problem, everyone would have adopted them by now. But there is no problem, so folks focus on getting their jobs done. There's a lesson in that.

author: SparkyFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 04:49:04 am
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 04, 2019, 07:05:35 pmIn the late 90s it was often stated as 8 bit, usually by the popularity of the personal computer, but when talking to people familiar with other platforms and technical docs you read more of words and word size which might happen to be 8 bit. Which means that a "byte", "word" or "character" itself contains enough uncertainty about it´s size in communication that it was pointless enough without any statement of platform and context. As programmer you need to take that into account.Once you enter telecommunication topics, there never was a need for an 8 bit segmentation, so it is less used there.In all cases you just need to know what you´re doing.A similar kind of problem would be the amount of a "billion" in English vs. other languages.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 07:29:43 am
content: Quote from: SparkyFX on September 05, 2019, 04:49:04 amYes to all that, but here and now, TODAY, does anyone use "byte" to mean anything other than an 8-bit word? That's what counts.And I've done plenty of telecom work (mostly telecom in fact), so I am quite familiar with octets and bit ordering and prime-number frame sizes and robbed-bit signaling (using octets) and all sorts of telecom weirdness. I've haven't seen any confusion in the telecom field when we talk about bytes, and we talk about bytes a lot.I guess I'm saying that the kibibyte "solution" hasn't caught on, isn't being used, and is unlikely to ever be used outside of perhaps some obscure fields where for some silly reason it's a requirement. This is because there is no problem. I will be surprised if this changes, but if it does and I'm still around I will drink the koolade.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 07:42:43 am
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 05, 2019, 07:29:43 amGood then the 7+ million hits on google, the 200000+ discussions on the internet and some manufacturers using it differently is not a problem, but what is it then ?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 07:53:47 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 05, 2019, 01:00:50 amThese prefixes already are the norm as that's what standards mean. The fact that there's a secret club in which well defined terms mean something else and which is somehow obvious to anyone initiated in that club is obviously an undesirable situation. That kind of ambiguity is what causes Mars landers to smash into the side of Mars and is exactly the needless distraction you speak of. There was ambiguity and more complete standards have fixed that issue. Now it's just a matter of getting with the program. The lesson is that some people can't let go of the past and that this causes standard to be slowly adopted as these people die out.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 09:43:46 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on September 05, 2019, 07:53:47 amJust look at the results of the poll, it clearly is deemed desirable to those already in the secret clubQuote from: Mr. Scram on September 05, 2019, 07:53:47 amIf you mean the "Mars Climate Orbiter", it didn't crash because of people using established words to refer to something else, but because of transition from established standards to some utopian globalist mumbo jumbo of one units to rule them all without confusion ever again.You lose again.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 10:06:29 am
content: Quote from: magic on September 05, 2019, 09:43:46 amI can't see the poll results as I didn't vote because our opinions are irrelevant. Only the standard is relevant. I didn't mean the Mars Climate Orbiter as I very explicitly said "that kind of ambiguity" and not that specific ambiguity. That kind of sloppiness and inaccuracy is why we need standards. The fact that you see it as some kind of contest with winning and losing at stake would probably be another reason.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 12:55:40 pm
content: You can view the poll results without voting. At the moment nearly 81% voted for 1024 bytes. Luckily we can agree on Volts, Amperes, Farads and so on. Or do we have to discuss EU-Volts vs. US-Volts? Chinese Watts?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 01:16:00 pm
content: Quote from: madires on September 05, 2019, 12:55:40 pmThe poll is wholly irrelevant.https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/majority

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 02:14:55 pm
content: Nice link mr scram.There was no minority or majority at all until they spread the chaos.Poll shows : Chaos level is almost 20%

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 02:25:02 pm
content: One of the things you learn with age is that the world is how to deal with the real world, where there is no ONE answer to most things. Language is one of those things that evolves organically from real life events, not from some agency telling you how to speak. Once a word is established, its very hard to change without an in-your-face reason to do so. Example: "aids" once referred to assisting, helping. Now when someone hears that word, they think of the disease with those initials.There has been no in-your-face reason for people to use the new terminology established by an organization that the average Joe pays no attention to. And in this case, the bulk of the technically educated people as well.How did other countries get people to adopt the metric system quickly? They passed legislation with the goal of making it mandatory to conduct business as usual. That hasn't happened in the US, so resistance to change is in full force.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 02:29:38 pm
content: I grew up with Commodore VIC20 , Apple II and TRS80 computers.Every kid understood that for computers 'KILO', 'MEGA' and 'GIGA' and others are powers of two.1 Kilo computer memory is 1024 bytes.1 Kilo of whole wheat flower is 1000 grams.Why do we need all those kibi Gibi and other nonsense now. Are we becoming so pedantic that we need these definitions ?I refuse to use this new terminology. It was good back in the 70's, it is good now. If the new generation doesn't understand it anymore : tough shit. grow up. Pull up your pants, comb your hair , and go do something useful instead of sitting on facebook all day long

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 02:41:30 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 05, 2019, 02:29:38 pmIf the old generation doesn't understand it anymore : tough shit. Get with the times. What you learnt has changed so go do something useful instead of whining about it on message boards all day.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 02:42:53 pm
content: In the printing industry, "M" has meant "thousand" for decades, perhaps longer. Still does. Funny thing... I've also never confused M (mill, as in thousands) with M (meg) even though I move around in both industries. So that's at least three different definitions of the prefix "M".Folks obsessed with kibi, etc. are like religious fanatics. They insist theirs is the "one true way" and those who do not drink their kool-aid and "see the light" are damned to purgatory. Such people often end up standing at airports and street corners, handing out leaflets and preaching their gospel to the annoyance of the majority who just want to keep living our lives. Religion has its "Moonies"... maybe we should come up with a convenient name for the Disciples of Kibi. "Kibbles"? "Kibbies"? Might be time for a new poll.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 02:48:51 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 05, 2019, 02:42:53 pmYou know people are running out of sound arguments when they resort to vilifying "the other camp". Note that your example isn't equivalent as the issue is that the very same term and not just abbreviation can mean two distinctly different things.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 02:57:07 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 05, 2019, 07:29:43 amObscure fields like, say, the IT industry?

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:06:18 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on September 05, 2019, 02:48:51 pmThe burden for a "sound argument" is on those who insist to "solve" a non-problem.This thread started with a reasonable question, but it has devolved to a minority (~20% based on the poll) pounding the table, throwing tantrums, and demanding that everyone else Do As They Say. That sounds exactly like street-corner religion, whose only value is in laughable entertainment for everyone else.Once again: Show us the evidence. Where are the examples of the confusion that would be solved by "kibi"? We've asked and asked, and the only response is "Our Way Is Better". That's no way to gain converts to your religion. Reply with some links to actual, real-world problems where "kibi" would have saved lives, money, time, or other resources.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:10:11 pm
content: My two nibbles. I suspect that you guys are wasting spit trying to convince the other side.I grew up at more or less the same time as others here and always lived with kB = 1024 Bytes. However, I have absolutely no quarrel with the newer terminology - especially because it is intended to reduce/remove duplicity, which could have unexpected consequences across languages (I lost count of how many times I got confused with duplicity when learning English).The number of hits around the internet and the amount of OSes that are using more and more these multipliers indicate to me this will prevail in the long run. We will be replaced by the newer folks due to death, insanity, etc. and the newer folks will be much more accustomed to the differentiation between the two.My biggest beef (and IMO one of the reasons it didn't pick up yet) is that the name is terribly ugly - it sounds puerile and it evokes a cutesy Hello-kitty image in my mind. If it were something like Kobebyte or Kilotonbyte, I suspect it would be replaced quicker. Completely my opinion.

author: Jan Audio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:18:31 pm
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on September 05, 2019, 03:10:11 pmAnd they found a way to do so.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:27:40 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 05, 2019, 03:06:18 pmIt's no use arguing with anyone who views either side as a religion. No sound argument would ever convince them as that term polarizes the discussion and eliminates any nuance or logic. Would you like to rephrase your question?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:39:13 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 05, 2019, 03:06:18 pmWell thank you for painting me as a tantrum-throwing religious bully because I don't agree with you. Really showing your true character.Now, back to the evidence: Sorry, I haven't gone around trying to collect any with search terms the search engines willingly mangle. I am not so invested in this issue as you think, there are better things for this tantrum-throwing religious zealot to do.I can speak only of my own experience, which does include unneccessary wasted time flipping between pages in datasheets (and other documents..) trying to verify my understanding of the context, because it is not nearly always as clear as you suggest, and I have run across numerous documents (sorry, I don't keep a list or have an eidetic memory) where the (mis)use of the prefix has been inconsistent, jumbled in both forms into calcuations, and otherwise proven to be an insane nuisance. For one electronics example, I always have to double check when I see a 32kHz clock specified - which k is it? Actually 32,000Hz, or 32,768Hz for typical clock applications? It's ambiguous. 32KiHz, while I freely agree looks a little silly, is very umambiguous. If I tell you the REFO on an MSP430 is 32kHz, what frequency is it? If I tell you the low speed internal oscillator on an STM32G is 32KHz, what frequency is it? No looking them up, now..Many of the documents I've encountered you've probably never read as they're outside your small sample of electronics documents. Apparently quite a few people here have never even heard of the binary prefixes, despite them being standardised on the most popular OS (not desktop OS!) on the planet, standardised in usage by some of the largest companies on the planet (I beieve I cited HP storage systems before? Nah, they're irrelevant, clearly..(1)), and even seen across untold millions of web pages as the default method of indicating file size. Clearly obscure and niche applications (which run your whole internet experience).(1) To be fair, they're not even entirely consistent - I blame JEDEC's vague at best guidance for a lot of this.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:43:27 pm
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on September 05, 2019, 03:10:11 pmI have always lived with kB = 1024 Bytes world too and that's definitely where my mind jumps when I'm asked the question. I also recognize the ambiguity of using two different definitions for the same term. That issue has been fixed by extending the standard and this definition is recommended by the agencies who deal in the defining and standards. Sure it sounds silly and the new fangled words take a bit of getting used to but I'm under no illusion that mere tradition, mental inertia and culture are reasons to cling to what's obviously less than perfect definition. This isn't physics where some fudge factor is required. We figured we could do better so we did. I don't even care a lot about what the definition actually is, I just accept that it is now how things are.After this discussion I have to wonder how many people reject the redefinition of the various SI units. Though maybe it shouldn't surprise me redefinitions irk people after seeing how irate people were when Pluto's status was redefined.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:44:23 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 05, 2019, 02:57:07 pmIf you say so. When I worked at Cisco we knew what kilobyte meant. And it wasn't 1000 bytes.Look, no insult intended, really. I said "obscure" because I find this discussion to be an amusing diversion, so I'm having fun with it. It's just that in my neck of the woods I've never used, or known anyone who used, "kibibyte". I mean *never*. Perhaps this is just because I'm old, since apparently the term was "standardized" (in 1998) just a few years before I retired. On the other hand, I continue to dabble and still have not encountered the term in actual practice. Nor, apparently, have many other engineers.Guess what? I just googled "Cisco kibibyte" and found some newer Cisco training material that uses the term. However it just mentioned kibibyte and then went on to say that in the document kB = 1024 bytes. So I may be wrong about acceptance. Perhaps as the newer engineers are becomingindoctrinatededucated the term is slipping into actual use? I still think it's stupid though.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:48:52 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 05, 2019, 03:39:13 pmIt appears that's how the internet works nowadays. When people find their arguments aren't convincing enough they conclude people must be unreasonable as they won't accept said arguments. By shifting the issue to the people the world makes coherent sense again without the need for painful self assessment and reevaluation. The same mechanism can be seen where everyone who doesn't agree is apparently a troll. You either agree or are wholly unreasonable.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:50:18 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 05, 2019, 03:44:23 pmWell, I could say an awful lot about Cisco you'd probably not like, but it's a bit off topic..The fact that they mention it is a start. It takes time - again, how recently did you last see 'condenser' used in documentation? It was ruled ambiguous and 'replaced' in 1926 (I believe, not exactly deeply researched) and I recall seeing things as recent as the 70s or 80s using the term. The key to getting this new term into common use is simply to start using it, rather than waiting on everyone else to do it first.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:52:28 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 05, 2019, 03:44:23 pmIt sounds stupid alright.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 03:58:19 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 05, 2019, 03:44:23 pmSpeaking only for me: I'm not opposed to these alternate prefixes. As stated earlier, I'll gladly adopt them once they are commonly understood. And yes, I recognize the chicken-egg problem that implies.But from reviewing this whole thread, it appears the argument for "kibi" is to reduce confusion. The problem is that, with such an obscure term, using it INCREASES confusion. Yes, its definition may be more precise - but if too few peopleknowthat definition then using it just interrupts the discussion while everyone sorts out what the speaker was talking about.Kilo suffers from none of those problems. No one here on this thread has been able to cite an example of where kilo has been misunderstood in context. Kilo just works. Is there a chance for misinterpretation? Yes, but it sure must not happen very often because no one here has apparently experienced one, heard of one, or can evenpointto one.So if the reason for "kibi" is reduced confusion, it seems to do the exact opposite. And I don't want to be "that guy" who trashes otherwise productive conversations with coworkers because I insist on educating them in "my better way". That's why I'll continue to use kilo until I actually start hearing "kibi" in more venues than just forum flamewars. Until it enters regular use, it's more of a problem than the problem it claims to solve.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 04:12:04 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 05, 2019, 03:58:19 pmMonkey has given examples in his last response and I'm sure he hasn't been the first in this thread. You could also Google search "hard drive wrong capacity" to see how many people are caught out by the ambiguity. The new definitions don't seem very obscure as they're already fairly well adopted in the PC enthusiast community which is an obviously relatively young one. If it were obscure that can hardly be much of an issue in an age where most people carry an internet capable device around in their pocket.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 04:13:24 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 05, 2019, 03:50:18 pmThat's OK, it won't bother me. They bought our company, and treated me well. I stuck around for a while, but then decided I had more fun things to do. I never really considered myself "Cisco".

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 04:59:09 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 05, 2019, 03:50:18 pmActually it's another good example. Cisco likes to add ingress and egress traffic to specify the routing throughput. That approach is quite similar to hard drive vendors using a multiplier of 1000. If you don't know that you might buy the wrong router. It makes it also harder to compare routers from different vendors because you need to figure out how each vendor defines throughput.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 05:02:26 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 05, 2019, 03:50:18 pmWell, since you asked for an example, the capacitor in a points ignition systems is STILL called a "condenser". So yes, that term is still in use.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 05:06:33 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 05, 2019, 03:58:19 pmIndeed, as kibibyte becomes less obscure at some point it will be misused as meaning 1000 bytes, leading to some combination of confusion and purposeful misunderstanding.Very soon thereafter we will see permutations of all the spellings, leading to:kibibitekibibytekibybitekibybytekybibitekybibytekybybitekybybyte

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 05:19:03 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on September 05, 2019, 05:02:26 pmA very interesting niche. Holding on hard, apparently. I can't say I've seen a points system on anything recent, though - 90s, maybe?Quote from: Tomorokoshi on September 05, 2019, 05:06:33 pmBy the same people who don't know the difference between m and M, or b and B, perhaps. The same people who can't spell three letter words like 'you'.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 05:34:25 pm
content: Since we're just riffing (in the jazz music meaning of the word), I will admit that one of the reasons I find "kibibyte" so silly is that it is almost "kibobyte", which sounds like a term that James "Kibo" Perry might have made up back in the Usenet days (when dinosaurs walked the earth.) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Parry). Look up "happynet" or Kibo's .sig file if you want to waste a few hours.Here, I will provide the links for your convenience:http://www.mit.edu/afs.new/sipb/user/marthag/text/humor/news/happynethttp://archive.birdhouse.org/etc/kibosig.txt

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 06:42:31 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 05, 2019, 05:19:03 pmTrue for road vehicles in western countries, anyway. But there are a lot of old ones still on the road, and condensers are a regular maintenance item.You'll still find it on many small engines, even brand new ones.Also on many light aircraft, especially single-engine. Points require more maintenance, but tend to wear out slowly with symptoms rather than failing suddenly. Electronic ignition tends to be all or nothing. When you're flying, everything on the engine is more mission-critical than in a car.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 07:34:33 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on September 05, 2019, 06:42:31 pmGood points. I guess inertia in very closed environments like aviation is difficult to overcome.As for small engines, I haven't seen anything right down to single cylinder two-strokes with points in a long time. Even the cheap imports (you know, Briggs & Stratton, Kohler, other third-world manufacturers) have all been electronic IME for many years.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 07:49:16 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on September 05, 2019, 04:12:04 pmThat was created by HDD manufacturers who deliberately violated customer expectations and switched to units different than those traditionally used for HDDs and still used for other storage technologies like RAM and "dumb" flash.You can create a 1 billion byte partition, reported as 1GB by your wonderful decimal-kilo software and it may still fail to hold a hibernation image of a machine with 1 gig RAM.So much for reducing confusion. It's all a cover-up for what originally started as fraud.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 08:06:04 pm
content: Quote from: magic on September 05, 2019, 07:49:16 pmWithout knowing it you nailed the problem.Because a KB was undefined the HDD manufacturers could legally misuse the term, this was no fraud since it was never unambiguously defined, whatever the pensionados here try to claim.If the Kibibyte was defined in the 60s they could not have gotten away with using that as 1000 bytes, but now they keep on using the undefined terminology to their advantage.The same as if any manufacturer can not put 970 grams of product in a package and stamp 1kg contents on it, that is fraud.

author: SparkyFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 08:30:11 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 05, 2019, 03:58:19 pmBecause Bytes are usually named in a context of systems with base 2, it does not often leave it´s context. There are very good reasons to do so, it saves some cycles when computing such numbers, but in the end it is mostly used as an information to the user without further complication. Systems internally use the amount of bytes to reserve memory or seek a position.But anyway, once you got two identical strings, same abbreviation, same unit, but two different meanings, that is a recipe for a problem at some point outside your control. Don´t get me wrong, i tend to use kiloBytes=1024 Bytes in everyday use as well (as does the operating system and programming languages i use, where i read sizes from), but it really does not hurt to know the difference. This is not more complicated than to clarify it in a written document in the glossary section or pointing it out by using the newer "bi"-units, as already done with verbal expressions like "shall", "should" or "must".At least know that there might be people that understand something in a different way. People make mistakes all the time, so when it comes to checking or solving problems, it better is written unambiguously.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 08:32:54 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on September 05, 2019, 08:06:04 pmSo, instead, they would have simply said "XYZ kilobytes" and the overwhelming majority of people - including technically trained people - would never have noticed because "kibi" is not well known. (Even today, as evidenced by this thread!)If on the other hand they had started saying "XYZ kibibytes" I suspect most people would laugh at what they think is illiterate Chinglish misspelling and presume "kilobytes" anyway.The "kibi" folks are taking a technically literate approach to this question. That's a very tempting, OCD-precise, satisfying concept (I'll admit being attracted to itsaccuracymyself). Trouble is, we're not dealing with MCU's. We're dealing with people and social inertia, which (sadly) cannot be upgraded with a simple reflash. We must deal with reality here, and the reality is that most people don't know "kibi", many won't care, others will think you misspoke or misspelled, and the rest will think you're being a pretentious snob. None of those improve communication, or your reputation in the eyes of others.What's the alternative? Rely on context. Humans are pretty darned good at it, as is evidenced by the lack of kilo-based mistakes. And the next time you have the opportunity to create a truly new term or prefix, remembe the lesson of kilo and define all the options right from the start.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 08:36:21 pm
content: Why would people laugh for kibi ?It is just kilo binary , very logical.Do you hear anyone laughing when you order a kiwi fruit ?Do you know how the third, fourth, fifth and sixth derivative of position over time are called?Now thats a good laugh.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 08:39:08 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on September 05, 2019, 08:36:21 pmBecause they'd presume it's the latest in a long line of Chinglish mistranslations. Happens all the time on Chinese packaging, and especially those one-page instruction sheets. It's become a meme of its own.QuoteDo you mean "jerk", for example? {grin} (To those who don't know, yes - jerk really is a defined term in Mechanical Engineering.)Edit: You made me wonder, so I just looked up the higher orders beyond jerk. You're right, that's hilarious!

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 08:43:38 pm
content: I'm not sure which is worse, snap or jounce.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 08:52:00 pm
content: Jerk and pop

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 08:59:14 pm
content: Scan this:https://www.pinterest.com/laurianek1/funny-translated-instructions/http://www.engrish.com/https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-chinese-translation-fails/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic...and consider what a reader is likely to think when he/she reads "XYZ kibibytes" on HDD they know was probably assembled in China.(BTW, I mean no disrespect to the Chinese people. I'm sure we butcher their language in ours too.)

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2019, 09:26:24 pm
content: You guys are funny. For the lazy people that can't google:https://thespectrumofriemannium.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/log053-derivatives-of-position/There are even names for nth order integrals.I learned something useless today.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 02:41:01 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on September 05, 2019, 02:41:30 pmwhile we are at it let's redefine a circle as a polygon with infinite segments. and a triangle as a circle with 3 segments. and so on.KBit Kbyte . it's self explanatory. we are talking computer bits and bytes so : power of 2.

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 01:19:32 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on September 06, 2019, 02:41:01 amCommon sense for me. But pay attention to your 'K'. Some people in this thread will say this is "Kelvin Bit" or "Kelvin Byte"

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 03:31:39 pm
content: Or Potassium Boron

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 03:50:12 pm
content: QuoteQuoteAnd thus we're reminded yet again that context 1) matters, and 2) works.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 04:14:40 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 06, 2019, 03:50:12 pmSo what's the frequency of my oscillator?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 04:15:52 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2019, 04:14:40 pm32 * Context Hz

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 05:14:50 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 06, 2019, 04:15:52 pmYou meant that as a joke, yet it's precisely correct. Thank you for proving the point yet again.AND, no one would misunderstand what was meant. Which, again, re-proves the point.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 05:19:34 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 06, 2019, 05:14:50 pmSo answer the question, what frequency are the two oscillators I mentioned? Right now, no datasheets. You have no context. What is my 32kHz oscillator?

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 06:13:30 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2019, 05:19:34 pmTrick question that doesn't prove anything in this thread. 32 kHz oscillator virtually always refers to the standard clock oscillator, which is 32768 Hz. Which happens to match the 32*1024 definition. But in this case I think it's just a common lazy reference to an extremely common component, rather than trying to define kilo as 1024. 32 k is enough, since there aren't any otherstandardoscillators in the 32000-32999 range.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 10:46:44 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on September 06, 2019, 06:13:30 pmActually, it does prove something. I just looked up crystals and oscillators on DigiKey's website. There's zero ambiguity, no chance for confusion. When it's a 32KHz frequency, they say that. When it's a 32.768KHz frequency, they say that - right down to the unit Hertz digit.So, in keeping with industry convention and expected behavior, a KHz is 1000 Hz. Exactly like you'd expect. If there's a fractional part of a kilo, they express it explicitly.What does this prove? That DigiKey understands their market, their customers, and industry conventions.The crystal/oscillator question was an excellent example, thank you for providing it.Edit: For fun, I just looked up "memory" on DigiKey too. Toward the small end of the "Memory Size" range (so we avoid questions of rounding) they list things like the following:1Kb ( 128 x 8, 64 x 16)1Kb ( 256 x 4 )1Kb ( 64 x 16 )2Kb ( 128 x 16 )So K = kilo, and if you do the math kilo = 1024. Exactly as you'd expect. Meanwhile, let's not forget that kilo = 1000 a moment ago in Crystals and Oscillators. Each usage of the term exactly as expected. Scrolling down to the larger memory sizes you find M, G, and T all having the expected values when referring to memory/addressing. Zero confusion.Edit2: Just checked Mouser. Same thing. When speaking of frequencies kilo = 1000, when speaking of memory/addressing kilo = 1024. The one difference is they use a lowercase "k" instead of DigiKey's uppercase "K". Yet, somehow, the industry isn't confused.I invite the proponents of "kibi" to contact DigiKey, Mouser, and the other major online distributors and convince them to drop all uses of these antiquated prefixes on their websites. Never mind the customer confusion that's likely to result - it's the "right thing to do"! Please copy all correspondence back to this thread for entertainment.

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 11:06:09 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 06, 2019, 10:46:44 pmThat does it! For my next retro computer I'm getting a Commodore 65.536!

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 11:07:28 pm
content: Quote from: Tomorokoshi on September 06, 2019, 11:06:09 pmWait, is that 65.536 kibi, or kilo?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 11:12:38 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 06, 2019, 10:46:44 pmWhich isn't what I asked you to do.The first page ofthis datasheetsays REFO is 32kHz, what's the nominal frequency of REFO? First page only. Simple communications here.The first page ofthis onesays 32kHz, what's the nominal frequency? Same rules.There's no ambiguity you said, so it should be an easy and instant correct answer whether you're familiar with the chips or not. After all, everyone gets it right, there's no need for additional context, we're all speaking the same language here.. right? We can't possibly miscommunicate these frequencies?Oh, and let's have a quick quote from an Atmel application note:QuoteThis makes complete sense. Yes. This is fine. Also just ignore the other 32kHz oscillator which is 32kHz, not 32kHz.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 11:23:02 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2019, 11:12:38 pmGreat stuff!

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 12:28:35 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2019, 11:12:38 pmBoth say 32kHz, so (at least!) 80% of people reading the spec sheet would reply "32 kilohertz" by which they'd mean 32000 Hz. And no, I haven't cheated by looking at the links you provided so I don't know if my answer syncs with their data or not. If not, a poorly written spec sheet reflects poorly on its author, not an entire industry. More to the point, if "kibi" were in greater use, any errors in the above specs would still exist. Would you honestly expect them to say "32 kibihertz"? (At least!) 80% of readers would have no idea what that meant.Meanwhile, the rest of the industry somehow manages to scrape by while blissfully unaware of their ignorance of "kibi". DigiKey and Mouser and the rest of the websites are completely messed up using all the wrong prefixes yet they ship millions of correct products every day. Somehow, some way, the industry doesn't collapse despite all of this raging prefix confusion. It's remarkable this forum, being based on kilo-based hardware and software, functions at all! {/sarcasm}

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 12:56:33 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 07, 2019, 12:28:35 amREFO is 32,768Hz. The STM32G0's RC oscillator is 32,000Hz. So, as we can see, mistakes occur, ambiguity exists. Your entire argument has been that there is no ambiguity, the context of the unit clarifies the (mis)use of the prefix in all situations. It clearly does not.QuoteI would expect them to say 32.768kHz or 32KiHz (yes, again, I know it looks a little silly butit is entirely unambiguous, and IMHO entirely approriate to express a number chosen for being a power of 2). Yes, the ambiguity created by misuse of a two century old prefix will still exist, but at least some cases can be resolved and, given time, the improper use will die out. And if 80% or more of supposedly educated professional engineers are unaware there are binary prefixes, their education is poor and they should get out more. I do, however, realise this is a number you've pulled straight out of your arse.I'm sure I mentioned 'inertia' earlier - it's hard to get people to change. Other industries are working on it, and standards for your own (previously mentioned JEDEC JESD100B.01) point out that the misused prefixes are in common use but not recommended, and point to the appropriate standard for a clearer system. Horses to water..

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 01:08:38 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 07, 2019, 12:56:33 amhttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/kilobyte-poll/The number has been moving around 80%, sitting at 78% at this moment. Which, ironically, is almost the same as the 2.4% "error" between kilo and "kibi".97 votes is definitely not a scientific study, but EEVblog has been mentioned as one of the larger online forums for the Electronics industry. Apparently you need to find somewhere else more in line with your personal philosophy, because 78% of the respondents, all of whom are members of this forum, are (your word) arses? arseholes? because they don't agree withyou.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 01:17:05 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 07, 2019, 01:08:38 amThat poll does not ask "Have you heard of binary prefixes?".QuoteI did not call you, or anyone else, an arse. Pulling something out of your arse is an expression (see: get out more), it means to make something up. Which you pretty much did, or at the very least are being extremely creative in your interpretation of that poll. I am not the one resorting to personal attacks, nor am I so invested in this particular issue that I would abandon a forum over it.. Perhaps you're used to running away from people you don't agree with (or just bombing them..), some of us are a little thicker skinned.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 01:52:59 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 07, 2019, 01:17:05 amOh, I promise you I'm plenty thick skinned. But I have a deep streak of the educator in me which seeks to help people learn and grow. That's why I originally jumped into this thread, because I see "kibi" as a dangerous distraction.I also enjoy a good technical argument. I suspect you and I could be good friends if we met in person!As I said earlier, I'm personally attracted to the accuracy of "kibi". But I'm also very mindful of the value inherent in effective communications with other people. This is one of those cases where extreme accuracy must yield for the benefit of the overall communication. Is "kibi" more accurate, more precise? Absolutely. But will insisting on its use today improve most team discussions, interpersonal communications, etc.? Absolutely not. It's almost always (almost, but I concede there are exceptions) less important to win an argument about how many angels can dance on a pinhead than it is to keep communications smooth, to keep everyone engaged in a positive way, and to avoid looking like an arrogant pedant instead of a team player.This is in the same vein as folks who correct others when they split infinitives, end with a preposition, etc. Are they technically more accurate? Yes. But most people are not confused by the slightly improper use of the language, and they are annoyed by people who insist on making too much of something that wasn't a problem in the first place.Do not take that as a personal insult aimed at you, it's not. But I presume you'd agree that someone on a team who insists on raising, and winning, an "angels pinhead" argument isn't likely to be deemed a favorite by the other team members. THAT is the point I've repeatedly made: "Kibi" isn't a net positive, today, because it clouds communication. Maybe it will catch on, but until it does I believe an Engineer's time is better spent focusing on the deliverable than demanding specific lexical behavior.We each have to pick our battles. "Kibi" isn't a winner IMHO, at least today. Maybe someday, but not today.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 02:29:10 am
content: Hey, I didn't come here and start a topic insisting people use the right prefix, we were all asked what the definition was! I just feel, at least when writing long-lived technical documentation, it's important to be unambiguous (and again, I've pointed out in-the-wild ambiguity as well as conveyed the fact that I have experienced it elsewhere). The appropriate prefixes provide this. Nobody needs to go on a campaign pushing it down their co-workers throats, but it's a pretty simple case to make to comply with international standards in documentation. Note: the relevant standard in semiconductors is.. ambiguous on the matter..In quick conversation, spoken or otherwise, I tend to just go with 'k', 'meg', and so forth - it carries the approximate magnitude well enough. If I say I need '10 gig' of space, then either prefix is going to give me the overhead I need for the actual data. If I need to be specific, I will be, and the proper prefixes give me the tools needed, at least for the binary case. At this point, if I say I need a 32KiHz crystal, you knowexactlywhat I mean. If I said I needed a 32kHz crystal you'd have to wonder, however briefly, if I wanted actual 32kHz (less likely but possible) or a clock crystal.Binary prefixes are a long-term winner - just like condensers are history now (apparently excepting really awfully cheap small engines and the very.. insular? perhaps not the right word, aviation industry). They will get there. Discussions like these, even if they do bring out the pig-headedness on both sides, should serve to speed the process..

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 02:46:19 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 07, 2019, 02:29:10 amI'll concede to my share of pigheadedness, for sure!

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 04:08:29 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2019, 05:19:34 pmAs you said, you have given us no context. In that case, the frequency should be 32,000 Hz. If you want 32,768 Hz you need to provide context or otherwise clearly specify the frequency. Pardon me, but you would have to be an idiot if you were to purchase a bunch of "32 KHz" oscillators with this sort of ambiguity. I doubt if you (or any practicing engineers) are such an idiot. And unclear datasheets are unclear datasheets -- we've all seen our share of those.But context-specific shop-talk is common and useful. If we're working with telecom "E1" systems we say 2 MHz but mean 2.048 MHz. And we understand each other. When I design OC-192 SONET fiber-optic systems I talk about 10 Gig, and we all know this means 9.510912 GHz. "10 Gig" is just easier to say, and no harm done. 10 Gig Ethernet uses a different frequency, andin contextwe don't get these confused.Sure, in an ideal world perhaps we could avoid this sort of potential confusion. But this is the real world, and in practice there is no serious confusion. Of course there are errors, but seldom are these caused by this prefix issue. Good luck getting kibibyte into serious usage, since people are unlikely to abandon a system they already use unless the new system actually solves a real problem.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 04:21:05 am
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 07, 2019, 04:08:29 amWhat, you mean by using a binary prefix to make it clear what I want? Welcome aboard..QuoteAlready is in serious usage, covered that..

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 06:07:11 am
content: I'm pretty sure that most people who use RTCs would scratch their head if they saw a 32KiHz crystalUsually a single glance at the datasheet should clear all confusion, unless it's one of those Atmel 32.768kHz clocks factory calibrated to 32kHz. BTW, anyone knows what's the real frequency of those?Also, anybody who puts a 32000Hz clock in a micro for timekeeping should be shot.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 06:12:44 am
content: Hz and kHz are SI units, no confusion. 32kHz is always 32000Hz, and you know that.Anyone who says 32kHz crystal (while meaning 32768Hz) is just lazily rounding (in the wrong direction). Similarly, 24-bit colorspace is widely called "16 million colors", even though it's correctly rounded to 17 million. This is an issue of inaccurate, mostly spoken language. Nothing to do with 1024-based prefixes.On the other hand, kB is not an SI unit. Using k=1000 outside of the SI system would be nice, even preferable, but for practical reasons, won't always happen.Similarly, the letter k in Monkeh does not mean 1000.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 08:00:10 am
content: Propose new topic name:"tebi or not tebi, that's the question"

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 03:15:57 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 07, 2019, 04:21:05 amGreat! Wait a minute, I just went to Avnet, Newark, Digikey, and Mouser, and tried to buy some SRAM. Damn, I searched for Kibibyte parts, but all I found were KByte and MByte parts. Perhaps they didn't get the memo? I also tried to find some of those 32KiHz oscillators you needed (you're welcome!), but unfortunately nobody had those either. Maybe next week?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 03:23:58 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 07, 2019, 12:56:33 amThe same "discrepancy" exists in some other MCUs as well, and I have actually witnessed a bug due to the confusion (on a PIC MCU IIRC), some software engineer thought the 32kHz oscillator was 32768Hz...So yes, confusion can happen, and problem with relying on context is that people with a different background may have a different notion of what the context is.I do agree with many that in a majority of cases, this is a non-issue, but this can be in some specific cases. Also consider what I just said above. People with a different background/age could understand things differently.Interestingly, I remember how I was first exposed to those IEC units: on Linux! Many file managers started to use them to show file size like 15 years ago or something (or more, don't remember exactly). You started to see "KiB", "MiB", etc. That's actually how I learned about them. And the more interesting fact is that they have apparently stepped back. For instance in recent versions of Gnome, they now display file size as... units with SI prefixes! (like they display 100kB => ~100,000 bytes! When I saw that, I was like WTF??) Looks like some don't know what to do really.As a last note, as an IEC standard, you either follow it out of good will, or because you're forced to. In the latter case, you can swear about it, but you don't have a choice. And I would have to check, but I'm pretty sure some other IEC standards you may have to comply with (depending on the regulations you're concerned with) are referring to this one. So not complying with it in your technical documents or user's manuals may pose a problem for certification in some countries and for some product categories.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 04:59:20 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on September 07, 2019, 06:12:44 amAnd we've just seen how this can be a problem.Quote from: fourfathom on September 07, 2019, 03:15:57 pmYou're being deliberately obtuse. Again, inother industriesthe prefixes are already in widespread use, and/or the correct usage of SI prefixes.Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 07, 2019, 03:23:58 pmCertain environments have followed Apple in applying SI prefixes correctly instead of switching to the new prefixes. This is an adequate solution for non-technical users as it aligns sizes seen in their basic environment with the labels seen on hardware, at least for storage. I'm not sure how they address, say, RAM utilization.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 07:55:02 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 07, 2019, 04:59:20 pmNot deliberately. It sounds like the profession I was in and still remain involved as a hobbyist -- electronics in general, and tele/data com systems development, design, and manufacturing -- hasn't converted to the true faith. Perhaps it's happening, but from my admittedly "less deeply-involved than I used to be" status, I see no evidence of it.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 08:19:41 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 07, 2019, 04:59:20 pmThere is nothing correct about applying decimal units to file sizes.File sizes have always been in binary units, as are filesystem blocks, RAM pages and basically everything except for labels on disks. Because even actual capacities of disks aren't divisible by 1000 bytes, they are multiplies of one kilobyte.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 08:24:41 pm
content: Quote from: magic on September 07, 2019, 08:19:41 pmIf I have 1000 bytes of data, how is that not a kilobyte? Sure, it may require those extra 24 bytes (or more..) on disk, but the data itself is still 1000 bytes.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 08:37:15 pm
content: Quote from: magic on September 07, 2019, 08:19:41 pmI agree with that. This is a really bad move, and quite frankly, even if I was puzzled the first 2 minutes (and then I looked it up), seeing "KiB" or "MiB" was still much better than this utter crap.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 08:38:23 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 07, 2019, 08:37:15 pmFrom the perspective of people who are familiar with the lower level, I agree. For a user who wants to know how much of their 500GB disk they're using, it makes a bit more sense..

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 08:42:59 pm
content: If Apple does it it must be a good thing... let's all do the same!

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 06:51:24 am
content: Disk manufacturers did it to sell smaller disks as bigger.Apple did it to convince you that they can pack more data on your disk than Windows.Linux-on-the-desktop crowd does it because of Apple envy.Some engineers invent parallel rationalizations of the whole clusterfuck out Stockholm syndorme apparently.The first two at least made money on it

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 10:06:07 am
content: Executive summary:We've done it this way for the last umpteen years. Changing it is just plain wrong. If you change it we'll ignore it.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 03:29:58 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on September 07, 2019, 01:08:38 amI'd love to see an age distribution of the poll. A scan of this thread seems to suggest that those who most vehemently oppose the supplemented definition are in the tail end of their careers. This make obvious sense for all kinds of cultural and biological reasons.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 03:38:26 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on September 08, 2019, 03:29:58 pmFWIW I'm 65 years old and have been retired but still involved since 2001. I'm not "vehemently opposed", I'm just saying that I've seen no evidence of kibibyte adaption in my field. I do think it sounds silly, but that's not an issue for me. However, if I were to use these new terms, nobody around me would know what I was talking about.Does the new generation of university EE grads use these terms? Or is this mainly a CS thing?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 03:41:23 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2019, 11:12:38 pmAn added complication is difference in significance between 32kHz and 32.000kHz and 32.768kHz.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 03:43:34 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on September 08, 2019, 03:38:26 pmI suspect that the view anyone has of their field largely depends on where and when they enter or exited it. Other phenomena like confirmation bias may also play a role.

author: mikerj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 05:09:51 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 06, 2019, 11:12:38 pmWith no further context 32kHz=32000Hz, no more and no less since the Hz is an SI unit. If a document specifies a 32kHz oscillator when 32.768kHz is intended with no other information (e.g. a note to say the 32.768kHz oscillator will be referred to as the 32kHz oscillator) then it is a badly written document.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 05:26:31 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on September 08, 2019, 03:29:58 pmSorry to disappoint, millennial here.Just old enough to remember when the cheating started and planning to hold a grudge for decades to come

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2019, 05:36:27 pm
content: Quote from: magic on September 08, 2019, 05:26:31 pmThere'll inevitably be contrarians on either side.

author: tkamiya
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2019, 06:26:33 pm
content: I just want to know which convention people used when I see KB, MB, GB, and TB expression. This is what happens when folks redefine something so used in industry to CLARIFY things....I would preferred something else. Like KB(subscript)2 to identify it's binary based kilo = 1024 and such. (or Kibi.... grrrr)

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2019, 09:43:18 pm
content: Quote from: tkamiya on September 09, 2019, 06:26:33 pmAnd the general answer remains context, speaker, audience based. Context = which makes the most sense for the subject matter. Speaker = what conventions does he follow. Audience = what conventions do they expect? And if it's still ambiguous AND important, you define your terms in some manner.Note that for the purposes of most non-technical conversations the difference is moot. Average gamer Joe doesn't care about the technical size of his 16 GB ram, he just knows it's twice as much as his friend with 8 GB. And for computer scientist Eric, who does care, he knows that since the subject is RAM, that GB is defined as 2**30 in this case.Standards (not laws, even when adopted) and recommendations (not requirements, unless you're in a police state) are not sufficient to make people change established habits. People resist change, especially change most didn't want or ask for.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2019, 09:55:49 pm
content: Messages that depend on context are always ambiguous. You can often get away with it but you'll run into trouble sooner or later. What they say about assumptions is true.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2019, 09:48:37 am
content: Basically the problem was that "kilo" was ambiguous because its value depended on whether it is followed by "meter" or "byte". So the solution was to make "kilobyte" ambiguous

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2019, 02:38:21 pm
content: Quote from: magic on September 10, 2019, 09:48:37 amSounds about right.

author: Ysjoelfir
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2019, 06:45:57 am
content: Just wanted to add a story I read yesterday:The german "Landesamt für Eich- und Messwesen in Berlin" (Berlins agency for calibration and metrology) tried to sue a baker for using "KG" as a unit for weight of his breads. They demanded 25.000€ for this great crime, since "It could be easily confused with a Komanditgesellschaft! [limited commercial partnership company]". And - as everybody knows - your local bread and bakery dealer usually also sells businesses for 1.99€. He decided to avoid the court by giving up trading businesses and instead changed his signs to show now weights of bakery products.They also checked an old scale which was there purely for decoration, also reprimanding him for that thing not being calibrated.Source:https://www.stern.de/wirtschaft/news/berlin--baecker-soll-25-000-euro-strafe--weil-er-kilogramm-falsch-abgekuerzt-hat-8898584.html

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2019, 08:23:08 am
content: Quote from: Ysjoelfir on September 12, 2019, 06:45:57 amOrdnung muss sein. If you don't do it proper you'd better not do it at all.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2019, 08:58:09 am
content: Overregulation is the fault of technology, which is making dumb humans obsolete so they seek meaning of life in messianism.Remember, even one confused consumer is one confused consumer too much. We must protect the least clever members of our society

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2019, 09:28:53 am
content: Quote from: magic on September 12, 2019, 08:58:09 amIt's common knowledge that the least clever members of our society express themselves most precisely and that engineers and scientists tend to be sloppy and imprecise. Or was it the reverse because the latter know expressing yourself carefully can make all the difference in the world? Yeah, it might be that. Let's go with that one. Some will consider it hard to get used to new terminology but I'm sure the stragglers can manage eventually.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2019, 10:10:03 am
content: Quote from: Ysjoelfir on September 12, 2019, 06:45:57 amSomebody should sue UltraFire, they've got a 18650 whose model # is 10.000mAh.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2019, 12:11:54 pm
content: Quote from: GeorgeOfTheJungle on September 12, 2019, 10:10:03 amNothing wrong with expressing 10mAh with an accuracy of 1uAh.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2019, 10:40:09 pm
content: Quote from: GeorgeOfTheJungle on September 12, 2019, 10:10:03 amI was just thinking, it takes some balls to use "'Ultrafire" as a brand name for Li-ion batteries. Or humor.

author: RES
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 09, 2021, 08:41:42 pm
content: The K in memory chips comes from K-RAM (1024 Bytes)

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 03:29:06 pm
content: I was just giggling at some of the posts stating that the new unit names have been around for all of 20 years and I should get on board.I started writing FORTRAN code on an 8K (word) IBM 1130 in 1970 - a little more than 50 years ago. When IBM said 8K words, they meant exactly 8192 words - period!Get on board? I have been on the train for more than 50 years and see no reason to change for some silly 20 years old nonsense. Kibbles and Bits is a brand of dog food.https://www.google.com/search?q=kibbles+and+bitsIncidentally, IBM numbered the bits backwards. The 0th bit was the high order bit and bit 15 was the low order bit. Apparently, the LSB is not always bit 0...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_numbering

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 03:50:52 pm
content: It's okay, you've been wrong 50 years, you may as well keep being wrong.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 04:01:49 pm
content: It's nice to have an ultimate authority, standardization body specializing on what is not included in the SI system, who defines what is right and what is wrong, called Monkeh!(Seriously, so it appears you still don't get it, despite having two years to try to digest it. I spell it once again:kilo is a part of the SI system only with SI units. Your idea of combining parts of SI systems and parts of non-SI system is your own idea, and I agree your idea makes sense and is nice, but it's not your call to decide what is right and what is wrong. Natural human language is specified by actual usage, not by Monkeh, and language is often ambigious. That's exactly why the SI system exists and is needed, but kilobytes are not part of it. But having been wrong 2 years, you may as well keep being wrong.)

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 04:03:48 pm
content: Quote from: RES on August 09, 2021, 08:41:42 pmRe-opening a two year-old heated exchange to state something that was said over and over? Let the discussion die on itself...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 04:09:10 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on August 10, 2021, 04:01:49 pmIt's very nice that you disagree. Bytes may not be part of the SI system, but intentionally misuing SI prefixes is not beneficial to anyone. I'm afraid that 'two years of trying to digest' your opinion doesn't mean I'll accept it and proceed with your way of thinking. Just as rstofer has had 20 years to consider an alternate opinion and still doesn't agree with it.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 04:40:12 pm
content: It is funny watching a long argument about the prefix, when I still have some issues with the "byte" part. Once upon a time, in the dark and distant past a byte was the smallest group of bits addressable on a given machine. I have seen machines which had 2 bit bytes, 4 bit bytes, 8, 10 and 11 bit bytes.It was about the time of the home computer revolution that the definition seemed to gravitate towards 8 bits, which was the byte size of those home computers. The spread of strongly typed languages also had an impact on this.I'm not a standards guy, so don't know if byte has been formalized to 8 bits (outside of various HOL and OS definitions). If it has, there is some use for a new word to mean what byte used to mean.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 05:20:57 pm
content: The modern byte with 8 bits is defined in ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 06:39:39 pm
content: Quote from: madires on August 10, 2021, 05:20:57 pmTo be fair though:- In ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993, the byte was defined like so: (https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:2382:-1:ed-3:v1:en)QuoteThe standard defined the "octet" to be an 8-bit byte:Quote- ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993 has been withdrawn for a while. The corresponding relevant std is now ISO/IEC 2382:2015. The definition of byte hasn't changed. They still define the "octet" as an 8-bit byte, while the byte is "usually" 8-bit, but it's not formally guaranteed.So what CatalinaWOW says is still valid, strictly speaking, even though byte is indeed "usually" 8-bit, and for all practical purposes, these days, it is. But the standard doesn't really help here.To avoid all ambiguity, we should probably use "octet" instead. Anecdotically, this is the term we have been using in french for a long time.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 07:16:24 pm
content: So, technically, we measure all that computer stuff in kibioctets?I will try to remember thatBTW, I also like simply "kilos", "megs" and "gigs". These are invariably used only in computing so there is no ambiguity

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 07:36:34 pm
content: Quote from: magic on August 10, 2021, 07:16:24 pmExcept in conjunction with frequency and resistance, in English at least

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 07:46:06 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on August 10, 2021, 07:36:34 pmAlso mass (kilograms), usually abbreviated as “kilos”.Note that “giga” and, therefore “gigs”, should be pronounced with a soft initial “g”.I am intrigued by the number of posts on this forum where the poster’s individual experience is generalized to “only”, “always”, “no one”, “invariably” and other invalid absolute terms.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 08:04:21 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 10, 2021, 06:39:39 pm...which is why I prefix my eight bit unsigned variables with the letter "o".Yeah, it's also to avoid confusingboolean withbyte. But nice that the "standard" supports my personal naming convention.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 08:24:37 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on August 10, 2021, 07:36:34 pmHmm, you aren't wrongBut in the sort of context where it's obvious they refer to bytes rather than ohms, I think they are much more likely to be used by computer nerds who mostly forgot how to count in decimal than by the sort of pedants who fuss about SI standard compliance. And certainly not by HDD salesmen.So it should be safe, I think

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 08:30:30 pm
content: A less absolute statement than the one to which I objected.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 09:16:03 pm
content: Generally, I must confess to seeing only one peculiar context in which it makes any sense whatsoever to talk about data in quantities of SI multi-bytes: that's when you store (big) files on disks. And it's only because total disk capacity is rated that way.Consider low-level details of storage on the same HDD - it's 512 or 4096 byte sectors nowadays, or maybe pages and erase blocks if it's SSD - all binary. Put the data in RAM - it's done in units of pages, and individual numbers are sized in powers of two, except for space-optimized formats that are a PITA to process for this very reason.Even in communications, though physical data rates may be decimal, there is almost always a protocol overhead, so calculations require a correction factor anyway. That may as well be computed for 1024 bytes as for 1000.With the computers we have nowadays, we could easily forget that the number 1000 even exists, if not for HDD marketers. And this means Jihad as far as I'm concerned

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 09:24:13 pm
content: A kilobyte is 1024 bytes, that's what it's always been and that's what all my textbooks say and I'm sticking with it, end of discussion. That fake "kibibyte" unit sounds absolutely ridiculous, I had never even heard of it until a year or so ago and thought it was a joke at first, I can't even say it with a straight face. Kilobyte is not a metric unit and never has been, the prefix "kilo" was borrowed from the metric system but does not mean the same thing in this context. This whole controversy came about due to storage vendors making up their own unit and using it in marketing to make their drives sound larger, it's a bunch of nonsense that adds ambiguity where there was none before. At least JEDEC still uses the proper nomenclature.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 09:34:36 pm
content: In any event, the difference between 1,000 and 1,024 is less than 1 dB.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 09:35:03 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on August 10, 2021, 07:46:06 pmHeresy! Jigs are a form of dance.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 09:39:31 pm
content: Perhaps a Morris dance? How do you pronounce "giant" as in Jack and the Beanstalk?I confess that I often used a hard "G" until I found that the US NIST standard for SI units explicitly calls for a soft "G" sound when pronouncing the prefix "g", and realized what the etymology was.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 09:40:13 pm
content: Quote from: magic on August 10, 2021, 08:24:37 pmToo often I am wrongSafe?! (More correctly shown as "‽") Not with us pedants around!

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 09:47:06 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on August 10, 2021, 09:39:31 pmI thought you were going to mention that gigs are a musical concertEtymology? Bugs are not a good starting point for a left right pondian argumentOf course, a good reference is alt.folklore.urban:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2901298/#msg2901298

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2021, 09:56:06 pm
content: Apparently, "gig" in music started as short for "engagement", where the relevant "G" was hard (preceding "a").

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 11:28:50 am
content: Quote from: james_s on August 10, 2021, 09:24:13 pmNo that is a kibibyte.For you americans we now have the special US version, the US Kilobyte is defined as 40.3149 inch bytes per mm.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 01:46:23 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 11, 2021, 11:28:50 amI realize most of what you just posted is intended as a troll, but gonna say it anyway:The word "kibibyte" literally did not exist in any standard prior to 1998, never mind that making a standard is not the same thing as getting everyone to adopt it immediately. Other standards took years longer to include those words. JEDEC, even today, notes that the old terms remain in common usage, especially when referring to memory.Present-day proof of common usageat the corporate level, no less: Go looking for an 8 gigibyte memory module of whatever type. Let me know how many you find advertised as "8 GiB" instead of "8 GB". Everyone that knows anything about memory knows its binary based, regardless of the word being used. Context has always been important regardless of which term you personally prefer.As for common usage, the new terminology has only been around for about a generation. There are still an awful lot of people that are two or three generations old, especially in technical forums. Many of us see no compelling reason to change stripes in this case, and haven't. We understand the new terms, but everyone understands the old terms as well. Any complaints are generally from people who haven't yet realized the world isn't black and white once you're out of school ... or are people who are trolling.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 01:49:17 pm
content: As one who is several generations old, my mantra is "So that's what they're calling it now."

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 04:25:34 pm
content: I don't much like the "kibi" prefix either myself, but that's really just a matter of taste. Saying it sucks, but writing it in its abbreviated form (Ki, Mi, Gi, etc) is alright.This is what is currently standardized, any other form being ALWAYS ambiguous (and yes we know that storage manufacturers have used this ambiguity to their advantage.)As we saw above, "byte" itself is an ambiguous term.Now habits are hard to defeat, and what seems reasonable to do if you really don't want to use "kibi" is to at least define what you mean by, for instance, "KB" or "KByte", or "kbyte", or even "kb" (which incidentally can be confused with 'kilobits'), etc... in a definition section of your documents or specs. It doesn't hurt, and will make everybody happy, while avoiding any potential nitpick on your use of terms.This is just my 2 cents. I know many will still not care one bit (no pun intended), and they'll use whatever form they are used to thinking this is the only right way of writing it. And this is none of my concern. I'm not Don Quixote of the information technology units.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 05:32:58 pm
content: I think writers of documentation and critical reference manuals should write the entire number out, saves a lot of possible misinterpretations.Regarding the “this has been the case of over 40 years” adopt and be flexible instead of sticking to what you’re once were told. Lots of people in Europe were complaining and moaning that their national currency being the Franc, or Mark or Gulden or Lire etc was disappearing to the euro.Twenty years later....... nothing. Just accepted. Same here in twenty years the greybeards are gone , next generations don’t know any better.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 05:43:56 pm
content: And it is getting adopted, no stoppingJust a few of hundreds of examples

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 06:26:49 pm
content: The examples cited above are proper uses of neologism.When new things occur, inventing a new word or term is a proper creative task. A great example is coining "transistor" for the new invention, instead of merely calling it a "triode".Two trends (far more general than memory allocation) that should be resisted are using an existing word for the new concept that corrupts or confuses the original meaning of the word, and taking two good words that have opposite or different meanings and merging them (as in "infer" vs. "imply"). The result of these trends is that a careful speaker, trying to be specific, must use more words in place of the original.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 07:16:07 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on August 11, 2021, 06:26:49 pmI had to look that upBut no I don’t think so.The wiki says it is a new word entering into use such as laser and robot in the past.In that sense byte would once have been the neologism.The Kibi is an IEC binary prefix just as the kilo is an decimal SI prefix, it is not a word that on its own has any meaning, combined with another word it gets meaning.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 07:42:58 pm
content: The term "kibibyte" is a neologism, where the prefix is also newly-coined.For the original neologism, refer to the first verse of St John's Gospel.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 08:28:38 pm
content: Neologism. Good word. I'll remember what it means, but may not think of using it often."Kilo" doesn't have any meaning by itself? I think any English dictionary will disagree with you, and I'm actually surprised you didn't catch it yourself. There will be a separate entry for the noun as well as an entry for the prefix. In fact it has two common meanings (kilogram or kilometer),depending on context. Sound familiar?Similarly, better English dictionaries will have both meanings of "kilobyte" defined, once againcontext based. Here's what Oxford says:https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/kilobyte

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 08:35:21 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 11, 2021, 08:28:38 pm"Kilo" != kilo and also different context.kilogram and kilometer are the nouns and the first is indeed in folks language sometimes abbreviated as kilo but always in the context of weight such as a kilo of meat. I do not know how stupid someone will look at you if you want a kilo of bytes

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 08:43:46 pm
content: I'm not the one who removed the context in this case."it is not a word that on its own has any meaning" is a very all inclusive non-contextual statement, but you DID say it. Just scroll up.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 08:49:38 pm
content: Yes and this is still valid.A "kilo" has no meaning at it self it is a prefix.So yes instead of using kilogram you say "kilo" but ALWAYS accompanied with some other item which has weight.Without that item it means nothing. Try it walk in any store and order a kilo.The return statement will be, a kilo of what ?

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 08:59:27 pm
content: If I walk into a store in Europe and buy apples, the clerk will ask "how much" and I could reply "one kilo". In that sense, "kilo" is used as a noun.It is somewhat pedantic to refer to a newly-coined prefix, like when "peta" was invented, as not being a neologism. I don't know a word for coining a new prefix, but neologism works and does not mess up any previous definition.When the US Army went metric, the common term for "kilometer" became "klick", not to be confused with the verb "click".

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 09:06:51 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 11, 2021, 08:49:38 pmOMG, I cannot believe this thread keeps going and going and going. It's almost like a bunch of arguing Engineers who can't admit they're... oh, wait a minute.The bottom line is that this group will obviously never reach consensus on this question. And yet, the amazing fact is that in regular conversation each and every one of us would be able to speak freely with ZERO confusion.When someone says or writes "The price is $200K" precisely ZERO people - even Engineers!- will think they mean $204,800.When someone says or writes "This chip has a 4K address space" precisely ZERO people - even Engineers! - will think they mean 4000.There is no confusion here unless you're arguing with disk drive salespeople, who already have basically zero reputation anyway so they don't matter. I refuse to let disk drive salespeople define my language.Get over it, get past it, be done with it. There is no problem here. We all know what is meant based on context.Now if you want to have a real argument, how about case? I use "b" (lowercase) to indicate bits and "B" (uppercase) to indicate octets. I use "m" (lowercase) for thousandths and "M" (uppercase) for millions. Thus "16Kb" is 16384 bits, "16KB" is 16384 octets (or 131072 bits), "42mA" is 0.042 amps, and "16.000MHz" is 16,000,000 Hertz. Fire away!

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 09:10:46 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 11, 2021, 08:49:38 pmTry it walk in any store and order a kilogram.The return statement will be, a kilogram of what?How is that any different? So by your logic, "kilogram" also has no meaning by itself.Ditto kilobyte, kibibyte, etc.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 09:20:14 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on August 11, 2021, 08:59:27 pmIf the clerk asks how many because he has no scale to weigh them on you can not use it thus this is clearly an abbreviation of the word kilogram, that has been widely accepted by the people. This is then also the single and only deviation of prefixes I know.If the clerk does have a scale and you answer "million mili" or "one millionth Mega" you will get a very weird look, thus proofing that almost all prefixes need context and can't be used individually.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 09:25:48 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 11, 2021, 09:10:46 pmIn a sense yes, a kibibyte RAM, or OTPROM or EEPROM or Flash very different things so context is also here critical, see the pictures above.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 09:40:13 pm
content: A small list of prefixes that are dictionary words in their own right in today's English: kilo, ante, ant, be, auto, con, counter, demo, extra, hyper, hypo, in, intro, retro, semi, super. Now you know of more than one example.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 09:45:22 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 11, 2021, 09:25:48 pmExcept all you demonstrated is that some people are using it. Which was not in dispute.It's not in conflict with my proof that the original words still remain in widespread use in the computer science meaning.I'm glad we agree that context makes the meaning clear, regardless which word you like to see. Neither word is incorrect, despite what you imply.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 09:59:39 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on August 11, 2021, 09:06:51 pmGoing back nearly two years: What's my 32kHz oscillator again?

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 10:14:05 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 11, 2021, 09:20:14 pmI would deserve a weird look were I to do so. If he asked me "how many", I would reply "eight". He asked me "how much", so I answered "one kilo". Back home, I would ask for two pounds, but that's a separate topic.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 12:27:13 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 11, 2021, 09:59:39 pmI'm not going to go back there to refresh my memory, but in that example *nobody* thinks that kHz means "1024 Hz". What it means is that people are too lazy to say "32768 Hz" and if there is a chance of a misunderstanding they should be more specific. Is anyone using "KiHz"? I sure hope not.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 12:59:33 am
content: Amazingly, a quick check at DigiKey reveals that "32KHz" means - wait for it - 32.0000KHz.I was shocked -shocked, I tell you - to find that DigiKey, and crystal manufacturers, followed normal convention. {/snark}Methodology: Search on DigiKey for "crystals", then select frequency of "32kHz" (their exact text), and look at the parts that come up. I narrowed it to just "active" parts, which yielded a list of 11. The textual description of most actually listed "32.0000KHZ" (their exact text) and the others listed "32KHZ" (their exact text). On the latter I clicked through a couple and they, too, were "32." followed by some number of zeroes.As a control, I performed the same procedure for another pseudo-randomly selected value: "32.768kHz". Yes, try to contain your astonishment... they actually had two separate values in their filters, one called "32kHz" (used above) and another called "32.768kHz". This time I selected the second value, because some here would argue that there might be some kind of confusion. As I scrolled through the first page every single one had the following string in its description: "32.7680KHZ".I know, I know - utterly shocking. Who could possibly have predicted such an outcome? I mean, given some of the comments here, you might expect that first search to yield some crystals at something other than 32.0000 KHz. But no, consistency of context wins again. And again. And AGAIN.The only people "confused" by this are those who choose to be.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 01:43:59 am
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on August 12, 2021, 12:59:33 amIt's amazing how two years later you jump to the same wrong conclusion and go prove your point by looking at the same wrong things. Learning has apparently not occured at any point here.Quote from: fourfathom on August 12, 2021, 12:27:13 ams/nobody/Texas Instruments and Atmel/

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 07:02:56 am
content: I suspect that their RTC oscillators can support either frequency so they just don't give a damn

author: newbrain
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 07:12:19 am
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 11, 2021, 08:35:21 pmDo not put limits on human stupidity.There is an Italian chemtrails proponent (plus all the associated conspiracies) that stated literally (literally, caught on video) that HAARP was putting "Gigabytes of watts" in the atmosphere.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 10:34:31 am
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 11, 2021, 09:40:13 pmKB is retro conQuote from: Nusa on August 11, 2021, 09:45:22 pmAlso noted, which before the IEC standard was accepted makes perfect sense.However nowadays someone still using it even in that context, even teaching it, is for me clearly an indication of not keeping up with the changes in the professional field OR not wanting to accept change, because you think differently and think you are right and the IEC is wrong, so everybody should just accept your obsolete usage.Ow I am not such a hardliner as the WOKE cancel culture, however if I were a student and some teacher would still teach this without naming the new naming convention, I would speak up.Just as with Dave in his video where he uses the symbol V for Voltage instead of U.That is just clearly wrong and you should not teach wrong things IMO.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 01:52:08 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 12, 2021, 10:34:31 amThere you go trying to make your argument personal, when it isn't and doesn't change reality in the slightest. We're talking about words (new and old) that are not just professional, they're used by the general populace, because nearly everyone uses computers at a personal level. Adoption is slow, especially now that most standards documents are mostly behind paywalls, so you literally can't link anyone to the straight poop. The average joe isn't going to pay corporate rates to see a standard he doesn't really need to know. But yes, I am right...and the IEC is also right. You're the one suggesting it's wrong, not me. In any case, common usage is defined by the people using the language, and the people who maintain dictionaries realize this.And you can't resist throwing in a troll, can you? I don't care if you use U, V or some other letter, I'll understand it in context. As it happens, I originally learned Ohm's Law using the letter E for EMF. Let me know if you find a linkable international standards document on the subject. Or perhaps we should read the original publications of Georg Ohm and Alessandro Volta to see what they preferred? James Watt and Gustov Kirchhoff might have had opinions as well.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 02:08:01 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on August 12, 2021, 10:34:31 amI agree that, in an university environment, you should expose the students to the reality of the marketplace and let them decide on the approach, including what you don't necessarily agree or like. An example? My basic circuits teacher told us how to buy an inductor in the local electronics store (this was in the 90s) - be prepared to ask for a "choke" of "X microHertz" instead of an "inductor" of "X microHenries".And no, I am not saying that "kibi" is as wrong as "microHertz", but that is what a student will find in the marketplace.Regarding U versus V, I see your point as well but, since it is a Youtube video, the rigor is not necessarily the same (although you should strive for it). I've seen it all throughout my academic and professional lives and I would expect this to be rigorous in a book or lecture text.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 02:22:32 pm
content: This discussion is like two medieval towns debating about who has the "right" ell.In most cases it's easy to grasp what's meant based on the context, no matter if kB, KB, KiB, ko (kilooctets, in networking we have to deal with octets), Kio (kibioctets), or Ko (the 1024 kilo). If unsure, simply ask.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 03:55:39 pm
content: The actual reason why "kibibyte" fails and will always fail is not just the stupid name, it's the fact you can't get a new standard accepted by actual people if that includeschanging existing words and their meanings. Heck, even if you didn't do that, it'sstillhard to get people adapt new units of measurement.For example, Americans are increasingly using meters to measure distance, which is great. But if the SI standard had originally re-defined "inch" to become something completely different while still being called "inch", it would have never taken off, and never would, because the new standard would cause endlessconfusion.Just like the stupid kibibyte standard. Which, indeed, is quite recent.How do I solve it? Sometimes it's obvious from context, but whenever it isn't and the correctness of the value is extremely important, like in a comment in code where even one byte off causes issues, I use either mathematical exponent notation 5 * 10^6 bytes, or 5 * 1024 * 1024 bytes instead of 5MB / 5MiB / 5 Mibibytes / whatever, I still can't remember which is supposedly which! This is also what a sane standard could require / recommend, instead of creating the mess. Numbers are always unambiguous. In scientific contexts, usage of the µ/m/k/G/T/P mess is often sidestepped by using the exponent notation, no big deal.But people like Monkeh who want to be on control of other peoplelovesuch standards because it gives them tools "to be right", instead of aiming for successful communication between people.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 04:01:17 pm
content: Since the major European languages cannot agree on the common noun head, Kopf, or tête, it is not surprising that people have learned different abbreviations for electric potentialE,V,U, etc. In my US physics textbooks, the abbreviation isVfor the (scalar) electrostatic potential, while the vectorEis the electric field (voltage gradient).One trend that I resist, however, is what seems to be leakage from European publishing usage, where variables are not being italicized to distinguish them from units. US usage (as codified in various publications' guides andThe Chicago Manual of Stylepublished by the University of Chicago Press) clearly requires italics on variables. Even Microsoft agrees, since the very useful equation editor built into Word defaults to italics, and one must select "Text" to change back to roman for "V" as the unit. In my copy of the 12th edition, Chapter 13 ("Mathematics in Type") covers this topic.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 04:03:25 pm
content: Local variation in the definition of the ell (Magna Cartarequired "two ells between the selvedges") was a reason to adopt the metric system, followed by the SI.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 04:11:56 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on August 12, 2021, 03:55:39 pmThank you so much for villifying me for having a different opinion. It really reinforces my distaste for humanity.By the way, you're aware the definition of 'inch' has changed numerous times over the centuries until people finally agreed on a common definition? Well, we're disagreeing on definition, let's personally attack each other, that's productive.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 04:38:08 pm
content: Oh yes, now you are just a victim of stating your opinion when someone else joins the game so you can't go on attacking people with different opinion undisturbed, repeatedly stating how wrong they are.How classic.Lead the way and stop treating people like shit, and you'll be treated well, too.And don't underestimate the severity of attacking the language people use. This is directly connected how we think. Communication is important.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 05:03:54 pm
content: History is so much more interesting than politics.Before the meter was invented, there were varying lengths to the "pied" (foot) across the kingdom of France, but the standard was based roughly on Charlemagne's usage.It comprised 12 pouces (inches), as in England.When Napoleon died, the French doctor measured his height as 5 pieds, 2 pouces, using the French foot, which propagated as "Little Bony" into the set of historical canards.In English measurements, that translated to 5 feet, 5 inches, only slightly shorter than the median height for that time in history.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 05:32:54 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 12, 2021, 04:11:56 pmSiwastaja, if you were "aiming for successful communication between people" you failed miserably with your ad hominem. This thread should be locked.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 06:00:48 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on August 12, 2021, 04:38:08 pmYou seem to consider an expression of opinion and discussion an attack. That would be your problem, not mine. You are equally 'attacking' the languageIuse, but I'm not going around accusing you of wanting to control people and making snide remarks about you being the 'ultimate authority'.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 06:04:05 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 12, 2021, 01:43:59 amOK, you're right -- I found a couple of references to KiHz. Sounds and seems stupid to me, and I think IEC80000 should be ashamed of themselves, but that's not my call to make.Does anyone seriously use MiHz? In the few cases I've found, they are using MiHz where there is no binary property to the frequency or application being discussed. I can't believe that the 106MHz is going to be supplanted by 220MiHz in general usage. Perhaps when the old-timers like me have faded away these ridiculous prefixes will be in common usage, but I sort of doubt it.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 06:17:24 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on August 12, 2021, 06:04:05 pmI haven't seen them use KiHz, but I have seen them use kHz to specify both multiples of 1000 and 1024, sometimes in the same sentence. At least with KiHz you know for certain what they're saying.This came from some Atmel appnote I read two years ago and can't be bothered finding again:QuoteThis is insane.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 06:28:56 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 12, 2021, 06:17:24 pmHere's a KiHz usage, fromhttps://qorc-sdk.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guides/clock-power/clock-power-clocktree.html:QuoteI don't like it (KiHz), but at least it makes sense.After a bit more Googling, it seems that the only "MiHz" references I can find are actually typos for "MHz".

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 06:49:25 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 12, 2021, 06:17:24 pmCalling 32768 Hz "32KHz" might be a reasonable abbreviation. In the telecom world we often referred to the fiber-optic SONET bit-rate frequencies as "155 MHz" or "10 GHz", when the actual frequencies are 622.52 MHz and 9.95328 GHz. But I agree, "factory-calibratedto 32KHz" when they mean 32.768 KHz is ridiculous.But I got used to seemingly-random clock frequencies when I was designing telecom gear, and I used to be jealous of the folks who got to use clean power-of-two-related clocks. For example, the basic "DS-1" (or "T1") rate is 8 bits (bits per quasi-log A-to-D sample) * 24 channels + 1 framing bit = 193-bit frame. 193 * 8KHz (frame rate) = 1.544 MHz. You would think that they would have at least used an 8-bit framing word so we wouldn't have to deal with all that prime-number garbage, but no, they only used one bit and then they multiplexed that one bit for framing, signaling, and datalink. And the higher the data rate, the weirder it gets. Then again, I learned a lot about clock synthesis and analysis.

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 06:50:16 pm
content: I'm unsubscribing from this thread. Maybe if most of us do so, those who remain can just argue amongst themselves which will consume their time, thus cleaning up the OTHER threads where we can discuss meaningful issues.Just a thought.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 07:02:53 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on August 12, 2021, 06:50:16 pmHere's my way of putting it: Those of us who enjoy discussing the topic, and perhaps random thread-drift, can continue to talk here. Those who don't can unsubscribe as IDEngineer have done (or just ignore the thread -- the title is quite obvious) and then they won't be bothered by our mindless babble. Their valuable time is now available to discuss meaningful issues, no doubt to the betterment of humanity. Perhaps unfortunately for them, this won't prevent some of us from also participating in those "meaningful" threads, but such is life.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 08:57:50 pm
content: Quote from: IDEngineer on August 12, 2021, 06:50:16 pmAs a purely technical question on forum mechanics, how does one unsubscribe from a thread that they've already replied to?I do not see a way to prevent future replies from others from showing up under: "Show new replies to your posts."

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 09:40:35 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 12, 2021, 08:57:50 pmFWIW, I do know that this is possible, as I've done it myself. I think it was just the "Ignore Topics" option, and that worked for "replies" as well as the general "new", but I'm not sure.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 09:43:22 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 12, 2021, 08:57:50 pmBottom right of the thread is a toolbar with a notify/unnotify button on it.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 09:55:51 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 12, 2021, 09:43:22 pmI suspect the vast majority of eevblog readers never use that button, including me. Can't turn off what I've never turned on.Responding to a thread seems to be an permanent override to it anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong.Once again, how does one unsubscribe a thread from "Show new replies to your posts"?

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 10:09:38 pm
content: Just below the forum title at the top of the page and near your username, click on "Show new replies to your posts". Then, at the very far right of the list of topics you can check the boxes of the threads you want to ignore and click on "Ignore topics".

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 11:08:11 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 12, 2021, 09:55:51 pmYes, sorry, when you said subscribe I thought you meant email notifications. You could just use willpower to ignore the thread in search..

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2021, 06:41:04 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on August 12, 2021, 10:09:38 pmVery strange. I found an image in the SMF documentation so I know what it should look like now. But for me, at least, the checkbox column and ignore topics button is not present. I also found an image where the feature can be selectively enabled/disabled by administration, so perhaps it's simply turned off currently? Or turned off for me or my user class?

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2021, 01:40:18 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 14, 2021, 06:41:04 amPerhaps I should have copied the entire instructions. Please see below:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/forum-update-new-ignore-topics-feature/msg651768/#msg651768

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2021, 09:23:28 pm
content: Ok, sneaky enable button found in my profile. That was the problem. No idea if I did it to myself at some point or if that was the default setting.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2021, 09:40:36 pm
content: Quote from: Nusa on August 14, 2021, 09:23:28 pmNo, that absolutely crap GUI of a white v/circumflex on a pale background did it to you. It isveryeasy to miss, gives no clue that it is clickable, and no clue what it might do if you unwittingly did click it.GUIs were like that in the 80s. Then HP (of all companies) introduced the Motif 2D widgets that indicated that there was something to click and which position it was in.Everybodyheaved a sigh of relief (ho ho) andrapidlyadopted the convention.Then cretinous weenies that didn't know history decided to revert to "flatty" styles with poor contrast. ISTR hearing that MS has started to undo that with the latest variant of Win10, but I don't care any more.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2021, 11:30:50 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on August 14, 2021, 09:40:36 pmFunnily enough, from what I once read, the "renewed interest" in flat design, appearing in the mid to late 2000's, was mainly pushed forward, at first, on mobile devices - it was supposedly making more "efficient" use of limited screen real estate, and was supposedly much lighter on resources for those targets. The funny part is about usability: as you said, it just all tends to make the UI confusing, not exactly seeing what is actionable and what isn't. And, whereas on the desktop, with a mouse, at least you could have "hover highlight" to give you hints (which is still more annoying than just being able to see what is what without having to hover your mouse pointer over things), on a typical mobile device with a touchscreen, there is ZERO hover action possible (so you basically have no idea what is going to happen until you click on something, which in itself makes touchscreen stuff horrible IMO). So that's really extremely not ergonomic on a touchscreen-based GUI.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2021, 12:16:22 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 14, 2021, 11:30:50 pmWhich is just another example of cretinous weenies not knowing history, in this case Win3.11 on a 640x480 screen or the Mac's 512*342 screen.QuoteYup

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2021, 05:42:35 pm
content: Art is created out of an internal need to express who you are, not to meet customer expectations.Hammer this into your head and you will be able to understand all software and website artwork coming from Silicon Valley, and much more

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2021, 12:28:49 pm
content: The difference between those binary powers and base 10 also gets worse with bigger numbers.With kilo / KiBi it's just 2.4%, but with teraBytes it's already increased to 10%>>> pow(2,10)/pow(10,3)1.024>>> pow(2,20)/pow(10,6)1.048576>>> pow(2,30)/pow(10,9)1.073741824>>> pow(2,40)/pow(10,12)1.099511627776

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2021, 05:27:44 am
content: You know, having a new numeric prefix (Kibi-whatever) doesn't bother me NEARLY as much as the fact that they've made it TWO characters long! That's just an awful idea.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2021, 07:21:30 am
content: Quote from: westfw on September 06, 2021, 05:27:44 amLittle choice or the confusion would have been even greater IMO.Alternative could have been to put2or2on it to indicate it is a binary prefix.Like k2B or k2B but that still is a second character.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2021, 02:02:37 pm
content: k²B equals MB.But k2B or kbB would be fine for me. The change from lower case k to upper case K for kibibyte (kB -> KiB) is a bit annoying. I assume it's done to match the other prefixes (Mi, Gi, ...).

author: @rt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2021, 12:59:21 pm
content: I want it to be 1024 bytes of 8 bit each, but it’s the 1000 SI unit that confuses things I think.I’d prefer all memory units to remain evenly divisible by 8 as well.I remember reading in a magazine article, an editor referring to HDD marketing Gbs as “Wiesel Gigs”, because the Gbs were rounded.I loved the term, but it didn’t seem to catch on!

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2021, 02:07:07 pm
content: This whole thing is a non solution to a minor problem. The problem has two elements. First the marketing folk have exploited confusion about the units. Does anyone think that marketeers will jump to use unambiguous language? Second, software and hardware folk need to accurately convey such things as cache size, buffering capacity etc. A good solution to this problem has long existed. Many programming languages have formal definitions for how to write numbers in non decimal based formats. The ones I am most familiar with use 0xDDDDi where the I is a base identifier b for binary, o for octal and h for hexadecimal being the options. Combining this with standard metric prefixes would address the second issue without a new and unique prefixing system. The best use of the prefixes would require adjusting their definition. The symbols would have to be interpreted in the specific number base. kx1000o would be x1000h times x1000h for example. (This interpretation also solves the marketing problem if strictly applied, but I am sure the marketing departments will somehow not get the word).

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2021, 03:44:42 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on September 07, 2021, 02:07:07 pmHey, it could be worse.Marketing types could start referring to years like 2k21 being this year.

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 18, 2021, 12:08:27 am
content: Since the byte isn't an SI unit kB is meaningless from an SI perspective.I'll never use KibiByte or anything like it, no matter how wrong it rubs some committee. Sorry, but their opinion is irrelevant.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2021, 12:11:34 am
content: Quote from: bson on September 18, 2021, 12:08:27 amIf you don't think others opinions are relevant, why post yours?

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2021, 06:07:16 am
content: Because it's yours which is irrelevant, simple as thatEgalitarianism completely takes away your ability to understand many simple things