Talk:Byte

message: In the section titled "Unit Symbol" there is an entire paragraph explaining that the symbol 'B' is the SI unit of the bel. This is not true. 
Although often used with SI prefixes - e.g. decibel(dB) - the bel itself is not, nor can it ever be an SI unit itself, it is a dimensionless ratio. Because it is dimensionless, it is often necessary to indicate how it was calculated by adding an appropriate suffix (e.g. dBi, dBm) in order to make meaningful comparisons.
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html
JNBBoytjie (talk) 10:38, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. Done. Kbrose (talk) 14:17, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Decibel is not an SI unit 

message: The IBM 7030, for which the term byte was coined, did not include error checking bits as part of a byte. Nor did the DEC PDP-6, the CDC 3600, or any of the other computers with the ability to access bytes of various size. The System/360 Principles of Operation contains the text "Within certain units of the system, a bit-correction capability
is provided by either appending additional check bits to a group of bytes or by converting the check bits of a group of bytes into an arrangement which provides for
error checking and correction (ECC). The group of bytes associated with a single ECC code is called an ECC block. The number of bytes in an ECC block, and the manner in
which the conversion or appending is accomplished depend on the type of unit involved and may vary among models." Accordingly, I call for the reinstatement of the text "The byte size designates only the data coding and excludes any parity or other error checking bits." Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:30, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed that statement because the lead is supposed to summarize the important points in the article body. The statement I removed, (a) is not covered in the body (b) may not be one of the more important points about the topic. I am not at all opposed to including this information in the article body and once that is stable, we can consider it for inclusion in the lead. ~Kvng (talk) 14:51, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Status of error checking bits 

message: Is the origin unclear?
The article currently states:
"The exact origin of the term is unclear, but it can be found in British, Dutch, and German sources of the 1960s and 1970s, and throughout the documentation of Philips mainframe computers."
Surely this is just the eighth member of the sequence which starts "monad", "dyad", "triad", ie a group of eight things (looking toward Greek). "Octet" and "octad" appear similar because the Latin and Greek cardinal number 8 both have the same form (octō, ὀκτώ). Compare e.g. "quintet" vs "pentad" for a group of 5.
Of course the correct term would be an ogdoad (from the genitive of the ordinal) but not everyone who wants to use precise, technical language also knows Greek.
If the question is about who first used the term in its computing sense, that may be unanswerable because it probably slipped in from an earlier technical or mathematical sense. –moogsi(blah) 23:46, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Octad" 

message: oRLY?
Anybody having a programming experience—even amateur—knows that bytes more frequently do not represent numbers (serving as opcodes, parts of bitmaps or compressed data…) than do represent numbers explicitly. Even for such complicated number format as IEEE 754 it wouldn’t be helpful to think of every isolated byte as of a sensible numerical value. Objections against complete removal? If any, then change to “are capable of representing a binary number” maybe? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:06, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm fine with that. You can change it to “are capable of representing a binary numbers”. Vmelkon (talk) 02:10, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

text: I completely agree for the purposes of this article, the following is just being pedantic;  Opcodes are a small part of the actual instruction, most of which is just a bunch of numbers that can be directly read on most architectures and for most instructions.  For architectures that either limit immediates to 8 bits or actually are 8 bits, the bytes in program code are very likely to have direct meaning as numbers.  Sure, you might have to read them as nibbles and mentally stick an "r" in front of them if the thought of assigning numbers to other numbers that represent offsets in sram adds too much confusion on top of the fact that you're trying to read raw instructions,  or if you're on ARM calculate the sign bit from a bitwise operation on 3 bits spread around the T4 encoding of the branch instruction because the people designing the instruction set were high on horse tranquilizers that day, but they're numbers with direct meaning as such.  The opcode itself is just a number too, although you kinda have to squint in some cases, but if you tell an x86 to 233 it's going to 233, damnit.  :D    --A Shortfall Of Gravitas (talk) 03:47, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  … representing a binary number 

message: : I think some of the information from individual articles needs to be copied across before those individual articles can be replaced with re-directs. I imagine there are multiple examples (I've not carried out an audit or check of any kind) but one that springs to mind is the fact that there exist (or at least have existed) 3 different definitions of "megabyte". Another concern is a false impression in the text of symmetry between decimal and binary definitions of kilo, mega, ... yotta. (Only the table hints at the fact that only the first 3 have binary definitions, whereas all of them are decimal). Dondervogel 2 (talk) 15:33, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  The 3½-inch floppy’s “1.44 MB” seems like a marketing simplification rather than a third definition; I think the way is currently presented in Megabyte, as a definition of equal relevance, is misleading and not to be emulated. It could be retained as a footnote, but that little bit of history more properly belongs at Floppy disk (and, yes, it’s there). —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ 17:01, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:   If the information about the history of "megabyte" is hidden in Floppy disk the reader would need to be told (in Byte) where to find it. But I actually believe the information should not be hidden there. Much better to have a section about the meaning of the word "megabyte" either in Megabyte itself or (if re-directed here) in Byte. The evolving meaning of related terms (kilobyte, gigabyte, terabyte ...) is also not apparent from a re-direct to Byte. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:   Maybe I’m missing part of the story? My understanding is that the ‘1.44 MB’ label was a one-off marketing anomaly rather than something that precipitated an evolution of meaning—a funny footnote  and having no relevance to the current definitions of ‘byte’, ‘kilobyte’, or ‘megabyte’. Correct me if I’m wrong! —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ 14:45, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:   I don't think it can be dismissed as a one-off anomaly. See p17 of Hale & Stanney (2014).Hale, K. S., & Stanney, K. M. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of virtual environments: Design, implementation, and applications. CRC Press.. I see it more as an ongoing symptom of a deeper malaise, namely the ambiguity of KB, MG, GB ... This ambiguity continues (and will continue) for as long as there are two different interpretations of each prefix, and the ambiguity increases with increasing order of the anomaly because while MB can be interpreted 3 different ways, for GB (either 1000 MB or 1024 MB) there are 4 different interpretations, and so on. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 16:54, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:   If the muddling is commonplace, that would being worth mentioning more prominently than I suggested. In the Google Books preview of the Handbook page 17 is a list of references, so I’m not sure I’m seeing what you’re suggesting I see. If it’s another example besides the 3½-inch floppy, that’d be great. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ 22:11, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not arguing that particular use is widespread, only that the ambiguity is. The statement in question (paraphrasing a little) reads "[MB] may mean 1000x1000 bytes or it may mean 1024x1024 bytes, or even 1000x1024 bytes", and seems to be on p24 of the version your link points to (search for "1024" and you'll find it). Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:43, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Here's another example. Rata (2009)Raţă, G. (Ed.). (2009). Language education today: between theory and practice. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. defines kilobyte as either 1000 bytes or 1024 bytes, megabyte as either one million bytes or 1024 kilobytes (with 3 possible interpretations) and gigabyte as either one billion bytes or 1024 megabytes (4 interpretations). It's the same problem, getting worse at each step increment in the exponent. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addressing ambiguous definitions of megabyte and gigabyte 

message: I just reverted (for the second time) the addition of a large amount of unreferenced material. Addition of new material is welcome if it is backed up by reliable sources. If you wish to reinstate this material, please read WP:BRD and then gain consensus for the change by discussing it here. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:16, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  New material added on 28 Jan 2020 

message: A discussion is taking place to address the redirect :PiB. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 May 20#PiB until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  ~~~~User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 10:55, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "PiB" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: The first sentence of the lead is:
::"The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits."
This treats the byte as a unit of storage or information, and nothing else. However, use of the term normally relates to how the data is constructed, and in particular that it is a sequence of eight bits that are grouped together.  (See Byte | Merriam-Webster.)  For example, when we refer to a byte of computer memory, we usually specifically mean one of the 8-bit groupings of memory storage that are addressed together using a single byte address, not individual bits that might be scattered in arbitrary locations.  I think it makes sense to put the emphasis on this meaning in this article, and to have the definition as a unit (measure of amount) of storage capacity as a derived meaning.  —Quondum 16:52, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initial description: not quite on point? 

message: May be of use: [
    |*| On the "1,000 or 1,024" affairs (Byte counting) # Background
    |*| https://github.com/exiftool/exiftool/issues/152#issue-1344954990 ]
- MasterQuestionable (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  My own explanation on the background 

message: Hi, it looks like somebody had added a citation needed tag for a 122-minute album being too small to count as 1 GB.
Well, I did the math and it looks like 122 minutes is too long to count as 1 GB, if you think of it in terms of uncompressed CD-quality audio. CD quality is 16-bit stereo at 44100 samples a second, 1411200 bits/second, 84672000 bits/minute, or 10584000 bytes/minute.
So if you count how many minutes can fit in 1 GB at CD quality:
    >>> (1000*1000*1000)/(16*2*44100*60/8)
    94.48223733938019
    >>> (1024*1024*1024)/(16*2*44100*60/8)
    101.449529856387
The answer is 94 minutes 28.934240362811398 seconds for 1 GB, 101 minutes 26.97179138322 seconds for 1 GiB. --Kjoonlee 09:23, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  GB album example 

message: It lists that all 61 episodes in 4:3 1080p is a way to think of 1 TB. The citation says that it equals 0.2925 TB. That means you could fit the episodes three times. 
I don’t know how to figure out the math, but helpful examples could be:
X hours/minutes of 1080p@60 fps.
x hours/minutes of 4K(2160p)@60 fps. Your Glutes (talk) 06:32, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  TB video example  

message: I've noticed that English wiki has only 3 pages about units if measurements (byte, megabyte and gigabyte). What about others? Кокушев Сергей (talk) 05:22, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The short answer is no. There used to be many such articles, but they were considered repetitive. By consensus they were consolidated and harmonised at one location, the Byte article. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 07:34, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should I write wikipage for higher ubits of measurements and kibibytes? 

message: 2000 years of MP3 does not seem a great example (wouldn't it be better as 2 years for a TB). Could there be a better example for a PB? Robertm25 (talk) 14:23, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: CERN? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better example for PB?