Talk:Megabyte

message: We need to establish a convention for Wikipedia about the word "megabyte" because of the conflicting definitions, or else we cannot ever use the word. Should we go with SI, i.e. 106 bytes, and then use the new MiB for 220 bytes? AxelBoldt, Friday, April 26, 2002
If we accept this convention for the word "megabyte", we then should do the same for "kilobyte", i.e. 103 bytes and kiB for 210 bytes, too.  I know children look rather confused when I explain to them that km is a 1000 m, while kB is 1024 bytes, because computers work better with binary numbers...
Maria Renee Jenkins, Sunday, April 28, 2002
It is our task to follow standards, not ignore them. The plain reality is, majority usage for MB is the binary MB, and I ain't talking about a small majority either. The fact that "there are 1024 somethingorothers in a KB" is one of the very few things that Joe Average computer user really does understand. And where did this Wikipedia "policy" come from all of a sudden? It's a really bad idea. Tannin 13:18, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: These are all good reasons to not take sides by pretending that one of the two major meanings of the word doesn't exist or is wrong. Rather, when the difference matters, be explicit about the usage of the term. --Brion 17:49, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that the sentence "This is the definition used in Wikipedia" pretends that the other meaning doesn't exist or is wrong; it just fixes a convention to avoid having to change many links from "megabyte" to "megabyte (i.e. 106 bytes)" or "megabyte (i.e. 220 bytes)". But I can live with that as well. AxelBoldt 09:29, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Proclaiming one to be the only definition used here would seem to require tracking down all uses of the term, deciding for sure which meaning was meant (possibly requiring further research), and either leaving it or changing it to "mebibyte". Letting normal usage stand allows further clarification where details are known and relevant. --Brion 09:38, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Establish a Convention? (April 2002)

message: "In the past few years, standards and government authorities including IEC, IEEE, EU, and NIST, have addressed this ambiguity by promoting the use of megabyte to describe strictly 1000² bytes and "mebibyte" to describe 1024² bytes."
This is unclear as to when "the past few years" is.  20 years down the line, it certainly won't be true.  Does anyone know when IEC, IEEE, EU, and NIST began to promote the use of these terms?  If so, it should be added in the article.
Meviin 01:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: from the 1999 for the IEC (I believe that the 'full use' recommendation of the IEC was in actually in 2005) to somewhere at the end of this year for the EU... (I think that a European Directive was voted on recently (few weeks), but it's official publication is planed for Q2 2007. -- Shmget 02:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time ambiguity  

message: Kbrose has been making bold revisions to the article without discussion, and I've reverted twice.  The essay was supposed to be WP:BRD, not WP:BRRRRRD.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:10, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see any major differences between the version as of 2008-11-13 and the current version -- it seems to me that the "bold" (and inaccurate) changes were actually introduced by Likebox without discussion. Shreevatsa (talk) 19:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It looked to me that Likebox just reordered the discussion.  However, I'll concede that, provide that we add a note that the stadards bodies' efforts are apparently unsuccessful.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:36, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

text:  This also is factually wrong. They are not unsuccessful. Naturally these standardization efforts take time, people don't like change. In other technical fields, the prefix Mega- means exactly what it should. In telecom, a T1 line always has transmitted 1.544 Megabits/s, that is 1,544,000 bits/s. It is about time, that a technical discipline like IT, adheres to existing standards and ends the confusion it has created. Kbrose (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Perhaps you're right that it should be happening.  However, it isn't happening.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 20:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

text:  If it weren't happening, we wouldn't have these exchanges. Facts remain, that these definitions are in place, are being adopted increasingly in documentation, software, and only people who don't like them argue about it. WP should reflect on technical issues what the standards are, and also mention the history and the struggles of transition. I am sure there are better ways to present that, but the most recent changes were steps by refuseniks in a backward direction. Kbrose (talk) 20:26, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is false, and you should know it, per the Wikipedia debate as to whether these should be included in Wikipedia articles.  Wikipedia was the most common use outside of the standards publications themselves, before the decision was made not to use them for the very reason that no one else was.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 22:19, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

text:  Furthermore, it doesn't seem to be the dispute should be in the lead.  But that's a matter of opinion.  What's not a matter of opinion is that Wikipedia, itself, was the most common use of the term.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 22:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

text:  As for previous discussions, the most recent seems to be at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Archive/Complete rewrite of Units of Measurements (June 2008)#IEC Prefixes (Purplebox), it which it was stated that it was used in scientific publications, but not in "the real world".  However, it doesn't seem to be being used, in reality, in scientific publications.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

text: I reverted back to the pre-edit-war / pre-bold-edit version. Per WP:BRD, we've done the bold, revert bit, the next step is to discuss. Per WP:EW, the edit warrring needs to stop. Whichever way you look at it, proposed changes should be discussed here, and of course they should be verifiably supported by reliable sources.  SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 14:45, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:BOLD]] edits 

message: Any objections ? Megapixie (talk) 09:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Opposed.  As long as all the multiples of the bit and byte units have their own article, this should obviously not be merged. However, I am for the DELETION (conversion to redirects) of all articles that discuss the multiples separately and merge them ALL into one article discussing the unit, as they all just discuss the same topic, a multiple of their respective unit. The customary or historic usages of these multiples in various fields can still be discussed in paragraphs. There is a lot of duplication in these articles regarding the binary/decimal controversy. Kbrose (talk) 16:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like a reasonable approach to me. Step one might be the creation of a draft article in userspace... any other thoughts ? Megapixie (talk) 08:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Opposed. Megabyte is the contentious term. When I search for Mebibyte, I want to know about the Mebibyte, not the Megabyte (even if it is sometimes a synonym, it's not always and it would simply lead to more of the confusion the term is meant to eliminate). BossAnders (talk) 02:42, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Strong Oppose 1.) Megabyte is the more common term, and 2.) they cover two completely different aspects. Since these merge templates have become stale, I'll be removing them shortly unless there is further discussion. — Ched ~  (yes?)/© 08:02, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Oppose merge, support removal of template, per Ched. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 12:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge in Mebibyte ? 

message: - I browsed to this page hoping to quickly clarify a simple and straightforward problem and instead stumbled across this wearisome, abstract from someone's Master thesis. I became mired therein. This page is uselessly tortuous. Please remember that such a commonplace subject as this is likely to draw many people for perfectly mundane reasons. Please modify the article so that it responds to simple, superficial inquiries (suh as my own) as well as to more indepth inquiries. Thank you. (Have not logged on in a few years)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.129.108.112 (talk) 20:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure you are on the talk page of the right article? This has one paragraph on what a megabyte is, and a section on its three (unfortunately) different definitions, followed by a list of examples. It's a pretty short article. What would you like to see in it? Shreevatsa (talk) 21:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abstract Knowledge vs Useful, Accessible Knowledge 

message: Anyone who has worked in the computer and networking industries long enough should not have much of a problem understanding which means which.  Bandwidth is in metric bits, raw HDD capacity is in metric bytes, and memory is in binary bytes.  If I tell people (who are confused) how to differentiate I advise them to use the following:
    "m" = 1000  (smaller sum), metric
    "M" = 1024  (larger sum), binary
    "b" = bit   (usually 1/8th of a byte)
    "B" = byte
If this makes sense to anyone, bandwidth would be in "mb", raw HDD capacity "mB", and memory "MB".  It makes more sense than making up what sounds like computer "baby talk".
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wdl71 (talk • contribs) 16:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The SI (metric) symbol for 1000 is a capital M, not m. Nicer is Knuth's proposal to use "MMB", "GGB" etc. for the larger (binary) units. Anyway, this article (and Wikipedia in general) is merely to report what is (and the fact is that "MiB" and so on are standards now), not to make our own suggestions. Shreevatsa (talk) 18:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Obviously, it is less ignored than you are aware of. Besides the hard disk manufacturers, there are the networkers/communication guys, bus guys, the DVD-, HD-DVD-, Bluray-manufacturers, the usb/memory stick manufacturers, the sd/xd/mmc card manufacturers, the pixel related stuff (12 Mpixel CCD sensor), the frequency related stuff (intel core i7 3.2 GHz), the speed related stuff (2 GFLOPs), time and size related stuff (milliseconds, 45 nm process) and software like Mac OS X that use decimal prefixes. It is rather easy to summ up the ones _not_ using decimal prefixes. That are CD-, RAM- and Chip manufacturers and a lot of software, particularily MS Windows.--GlaMax (talk) 08:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Mebibyte" is rediculous 

message: It can contain a value of 1,000,000 or 1,048,572. How can something equal two values? A Megabyte equals 1048572. Do not use the back of a HDD box which contains *advertising* as a way to prove it equals something less. Otherwise I would believe 'coke is it'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.134.124.36 (talk) 22:54, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: To repeat what Shreevatsa wrote above, "[T]his article (and Wikipedia in general) is merely to report what is". The term "Megabyte" is used to mean two different values. You don't like this; I don't like this. Tough, because that is how it is used, and so that is what the article must contain. HairyWombat (talk) 18:38, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Megabyte equals two values? 

message: This is absolutely retarded, you need to consult CS and EE textbooks to see what a megabyte actually is, and it's 1024 kilobytes, where a kilobyte is 1024 bytes (not 1000 bytes). Megabyte is not used to mean two different values.  It is however used by marketing and advertising people and idiots who don't know what they're talking about.  It doesn't matter very much when you're looking at a hard drive box, but these are not the actual values as they are defined in computer science and engineering textbooks, which should be given deference over anything else in this case.  Furthermore, these are not fucking SI quantities.  SI quantities and decimal bases are great for physics, but they are not useful everywhere, and as a result CS and EE use a binary base, just like they use a binary log.  Get your fucking facts straight, this has brought Wikipedia credibility down in my eyes.
And yes, the big M is for 1024 KB, where K is 1024 B and B is a byte and the little m is for 1000kb, the little k is for 1000 bits, these are used as well and that is how they are differentiated, there is sometimes a need, usually in networks, to use decimal and this is how it is done.
Thank you, now go punch yourself in the face, whichever dumb ass or dumb asses wrote this article and thought it was actually OK.--66.68.84.105 (talk) 05:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, the language in your post doesn't exude much credibility for anyone to take you seriously or even contemplate your arguments, except for the recognition that you are obviously not a qualified contributor. Textbooks are secondary (interpreting) sources, and do not supersede standards body determinations and definitions, arrived at by consensus among industry professionals. Kbrose (talk) 15:25, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: So, you just made a more polite version of "go shoot yourself" and it's all better?  This is starting to look like Youtube.  67.161.157.179 (talk) 10:08, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is retarded and shoot yourself in the head please 

message: IMO, this and all of the articles related to memory capacities should be rewritten.    Despite what the article says, if you ask most technical people they will tell you that a MB is 1024*1024 bytes.  They will also tell you that Mb is 1000*1000 bits.  The usefulness of base decimal arithmetic is not universal, for example the use of a binary logarithm is quite common when discussing algorithms.  Even though Mega- is an SI term, it shouldn't be Wikipedia's job to dictate that it is exclusive to SI measurements, Wikipedia should fairly document what the term "megabyte" has been used for, lest readers be confused when they encounter a situation that contradicts the reality that Wikipedia would have them believe: that mebibyte is a term that is actually used in practice and is useful (I've never seen this term used) and that megabyte really is predominantly associated with 1000*1000 bytes.
At the very least, the use of MB as 2^20 bytes deserves a significant portion of this article and the proposed standard of MB as 10^6 bytes should be documented as such - a proposed standard instead of having readers believe what is actually not true.  I think the idea of mebibyte, even though I disagree with it, is OK to document, but this and the other articles seem to me to be written in a way that claims that these terms are simply the end all and be all of memory sizes when that simply isn't the case.
Also, to preface the definition of megabyte in the article with "The term "megabyte" is ambiguous because it is commonly used to mean either 10002 bytes or 10242 bytes." is unnecessary.  Instead of saying that the term "megabyte" is ambiguous, simply state the different uses and contexts where each use might occur and probably some information on which terms are more common and the instances where certain terms might be more likely.
--Rahennig (talk) 18:33, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I cannot confrim that. Back in my university's network department days, we nearly exclusively used prefixes in its decimal meaning (as usual in transfer rates). In those exceptional cases we needed the binary meaning, it was quite common to use kibi, mebi or gibi. However, this is half a decade ago and may have changed now. --GlaMax (talk) 09:18, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite 

message: This article is a bunch of POV-pushing crap why are so many people like crap!. Some of the I.P.s active here might be the same old ones who have been banned because they couldn’t stop advocating that the world adopt the IEC prefixes (MiB and KiB). This article is in need of a serious rewrite. Unfortunately, most of the serious wikipedians just roll their eyeballs at this article and give up on it because of what the I.P.s are up to. What a mess. Greg L (talk) 21:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV-pushing crap 

message: It's just wrong. http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/crd/Localgov/Second%20Level%20pages/indiana_pi_bill.htm 94.197.127.241 (talk) 01:00, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I can state without referring to references, and yet with considerable confidence, that absolutely nobody has proposed "making a megabyte 1000". Jeh (talk) 23:24, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Making a megabyte 1024 kilobytes is like the time Indiana tried to make Pi 3.2.  It's just wrong. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:04, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well duh, Pi is exactly 3.  Or so the joke goes.  "Amen!"  67.161.157.179 (talk) 10:09, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Making a megabyte 1000 is like the time Indiana tried to make Pi 3.2 

message: Although the ISQ standard for megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes, the JEDEC standard is 1,048,576, and the latter usage is still more common for memory, although memory units as small as a megabyte are uncommon, except in the context above: "Well, for starters, if someone asks me how much memory is available for dynamic instances of object type X, and I answer two megabytes, then they will go away thinking that they can create 2048 dynamic objects each using 1024 bytes of memory... and they'll be correct. "  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 07:47, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This example is certainly total rubbish, as programming in any high-level language does not care whether its memory sizes fit any particular binary boundary, other than a minimal storage unit boundary. These kinds of examples are manufactured purely to support a certain POV. Any good programmer these days will question the meaning, if it isn't clear. You are assuming every programmer is stupid. Everywhere one looks in newly written software these days one finds increasing use of either correct metric usage, or binary multiples. I can't even count the pieces of software I run across that uses the units correctly. Kbrose (talk) 19:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

text: You might want to read carefully the JEDEC Standard No. 100B.01. It's available via free registration. The interesting part is on page 8. First, it mentions mega-, but only as a "prefix to units of semiconductor storage capacity" and not as a prefix for general units of information. Second, It doesn't recommend to use a binary value for the megabyte, it merely acknowledges its usage as one, just before explaining that it's a deprecated usage. Here is the exact text: "The definitions of kilo, giga, and mega based on powers of two are included only to reflect common usage. IEEE/ASTM SI 10-1997 states “This practice frequently leads to confusion and is deprecated.” Further confusion results from the popular use of a “megabyte” consisting of 1 024 000 bytes to define the capacity of the familiar “1.44-MB” diskette." Further, it mentions the IEC prefixes (mebi-, etc.) as alternatives, and we can suppose they do so for their lack of ambiguity. Compvis (talk) 08:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Some (possibly relevant) links     Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Deprecated by standards bodies is not necessarily the same as deprecated in the real world; and Dondervogel's sources show that better than the sources I would have used.  Source 2 says 2^20, and source 4 says "yes" when asked whether it's 10^6 or 2^20.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 17:30, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  My revert was based on your edit summary "On the contrary, it is clear that the binary usage is NOT being deprecated".  The "real world", as you call it, does not use the language of deprecation, so I assumed you were talking about standards bodies.  The sources are not intended to make any particular point, they are there only to provide input for discussion. To be honest I'm not sure of their relevance here, because they are (mostly) about the meaning of "megapixel", whereas I suppose what is disputed here is the definition of "megabyte".  Perhaps what we really need are sources that answer the question "how many bytes in a megapixel?" Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:44, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

text:  Arthur, it seems to me like we both work from about the same basic facts, yet we reach different conclusions. Let me explain my take on this. From your page, I gather that you are from the US, and as is well known, the US is not the strongest proponent of the SI, and is one of the last countries not to have adopted it. It seems to me like you and your country fail to grasp the true importance of the SI. Indeed, the SI is probably one of the strongest standards in existence, only second to things like math, music, several languages, etc. if you count those things as standards. Do you understand that throughout math, science, engineering and commerce, kilo means 1,000, and mega means 1,000,000, etc. with absolutely no exception? That is, except for this truly whimsical field that is computing/information technology. And actually, not even the whole field, a small part of it (compare megahertz, megapixel and megabyte), and not even in a consistent way (see kilobit vs kilobyte). Actually the US seems quite used to have units with different meaning depending on the context such as in the primitive US customary units (gallon US vs UK, mile statute vs nautical, etc.), but this is absolutely not the case with SI! The SI puts an end to many of these confusions. Arthur, I'll say it as politely as I can, but you have to broaden your horizon, consider the world, or if you prefer the english-speaking world. It's much bigger than the US, and it doesn't have its reluctance to adopt a sane measurement system. As soon as you take into account the greater context, you will only be able to see the use of SI prefixes in a binary sense as unwise, erroneous, and rightfully deprecated. Compvis (talk) 08:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

text: (ec-self) The way "deprecated" was written is correct' I was wrong as to the JEDEC standard, but I am not wrong in that the "binary" definition is actually used by manufacturers and by people in general.  Some evidence has been provided that it is less used, but "historical" is incorrect.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:41, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not believe that anyone has suggested or tried to state that they weren't used as widely as they still are. Reading the articles on this topic, one cannot come away with an impression that they aren't, virtually every article points out the conflict, in almost excessive manner.  As far as the historical aspect is concerned, I wrote that the use arose for historical reasons, which is entirely true and accurate, as such a need had it occurred today would have met a different solution, as the higher order prefixes are over 20% inaccurate, enough that nobody would accept the solution of reusing the metric prefixes. But in the 60s, they only had to deal with the small difference of 2.4 %. That is the historical aspect, not that the units are of historical nature, as the sentence properly identifies.  Kbrose (talk) 01:49, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  binary again 

message: === "Original" (before last week) ===
However, in the computer and information technology fields, several other definitions are used. A common usage is to designate one megabyte as  (220), a measurement that conveniently expresses the binary multiples inherent in digital computer memory architectures. Less common is a measurement that used the megabyte to mean 1000×1024 () bytes.
=== "New" ===
However, in the computer and information technology fields, several other definitions are used that arose for historical reasons of convenience. A common usage has been to designate one megabyte as  (220), a measurement that conveniently expresses the binary multiples inherent in digital computer memory architectures. However, most standards bodies have deprecated this usage in favor of a set of binary prefixes, in which this measurement is designated by the unit mebibyte (MiB). Less common is a measurement that used the megabyte to mean 1000×1024 () bytes.
=== Possible compromise ===
However, in the computer and information technology fields, other definitions are used. A common usage is to designate one megabyte as  (220), a measurement that conveniently expresses the binary multiples inherent in digital computer memory architectures. However, most standards bodies have deprecated this usage in favor of a set of binary prefixes, in which this measurement is designated by the unit mebibyte (MiB). Less common is a measurement that used the megabyte to mean 1000×1024 () bytes.
::This version has no advantage over the new version. The new version correctly identifies the incorrect usage with the tense  "... has been to designate..."  which is proper grammar for a situation that started in the past and is ongoing. Changing that to present tense is wrong, at least it is incomplete in terms of history.  Also, leaving out the phrase ... that arose for historical reasons of convenience, is no improvement as it removes a explanation of the reason for such usage, albeit short.  The binary interpretation indeed started as a convenience long time ago, whence historical. Previously, all prefixes were interpreted in metric fashion.
I see no reason to change from the new version, as it accurately reflects the situation and history. Kbrose (talk) 19:54, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, normally, you use the units defined by the people who actually use them.  You know, like how horsepower is an automobile unit and ...  Nevermind, we all know how this'll go.  It'll be physical standards bodies versus the entirety of programmers, everywhere, for the near future.  They just waited until all the low-level programmers became as rare as unicorn horns, to make this move about 10 years ago.  People defining words have a clear personal agenda - they want to 'own' the right to scientific culture.  In 40 years, all the old programmers will vanish.  There is an irony that base-10 units for physics are themselves arbitrary since humans have 10 fingers.  Us mere mortals are limited to integers. 2A04:1980:3100:1AAB:FCA6:64A7:43AD:A309 (talk) 10:26, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

text: BTW apparently, the word meaning "not to live anymore" is censored.  Oh well... 2A04:1980:3100:1AAB:FCA6:64A7:43AD:A309 (talk) 10:27, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Specific editing proposals 

message: However, in the computer and information technology fields, other definitions are used. A common usage is to designate one megabyte as  (220), a measurement that conveniently expresses the binary multiples inherent in digital computer memory architectures. However, most standards bodies have deprecated this usage in favor of a set of binary prefixes, in which this measurement is designated by the unit mebibyte (MiB). Less common is a measurement that used the megabyte to mean 1000×1024 () bytes.
::This version has no advantage over the new version. The new version correctly identifies the incorrect usage with the tense  "... has been to designate..."  which is proper grammar for a situation that started in the past and is ongoing. Changing that to present tense is wrong, at least it is incomplete in terms of history.  Also, leaving out the phrase ... that arose for historical reasons of convenience, is no improvement as it removes a explanation of the reason for such usage, albeit short.  The binary interpretation indeed started as a convenience long time ago, whence historical. Previously, all prefixes were interpreted in metric fashion.
I see no reason to change from the new version, as it accurately reflects the situation and history. Kbrose (talk) 19:54, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible compromise 

message: However, in the computer and information technology fields, other definitions are used. In the 1980s, when the first hard drives were developed, the megabyte meant one million bytes.  When semiconductor memory first exceeded 1 megabyte, due to the binary multiples inherent in digital computer memory architectures, it became common to use this term to mean not 1000000 bytes but  (220). As of 2014, most standards bodies deprecate this usage in favor of a set of binary prefixes, in which this measurement is designated by the unit mebibyte (MiB). Less common is a measurement that used the megabyte to mean 1000×1024 () bytes.
:Well, normally, you use the units defined by the people who actually use them.  You know, like how horsepower is an automobile unit and ...  Nevermind, we all know how this'll go.  It'll be physical standards bodies versus the entirety of programmers, everywhere, for the near future.  They just waited until all the low-level programmers became as rare as unicorn horns, to make this move about 10 years ago.  People defining words have a clear personal agenda - they want to 'own' the right to scientific culture.  In 40 years, all the old programmers will vanish.  There is an irony that base-10 units for physics are themselves arbitrary since humans have 10 fingers.  Us mere mortals are limited to integers. 2A04:1980:3100:1AAB:FCA6:64A7:43AD:A309 (talk) 10:26, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW apparently, the word meaning "not to live anymore" is censored.  Oh well... 2A04:1980:3100:1AAB:FCA6:64A7:43AD:A309 (talk) 10:27, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative Proposal 

message: There are two things missing from this article in my opinion.
1. Discussion of the difference between megabyte and megabit.  I know this seems related more to the general articles on bits and bytes, but there is quite a lot of confusion as to what a 5Mb/s internet connection entails.  Many people think that this implies a 5MB/s download speed, and I think a discussion of the distinction here would be useful.  Alternatively or in addition, it may be a good idea to merge this article with megabit, since we already have bit and byte for the distinction, and afaik megabit is only used in a couple of contexts.
:Notably megabit includes a statement on this point, but a person who thinks that Mb/s implies MB/s in file transfers will never find the information38.97.97.99 (talk) 22:59, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion not related to 1000 vs. 1024 

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:09, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Given there doesn't seem to be an official definition of how many bits in a megabyte or mebibyte anyway how do we really know the capacity? The assumption that 8 bits is in a byte is only for 8 bit byte computers (which is most, but not all).  Read wikipedia's own definition of byte and it states there that anywhere from 1 bit to 48 bits have been used in the past for bytes.  So, is the capacity of a Megabyte, in 1 bit bytes or 48 bit bytes? Zhulien (talk) 9:16, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  What does it matter anyway? 

message: The redirect M,egabyte has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.  Steel1943 (talk) 21:26, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[[:M,egabyte]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]