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Domain: romulus2.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to romulus2.com.

Comments · 7

  1. Re:In the UK by cca93014 · · Score: 1 · on Shopping Online

    Overclockers are a joke. Have a look here: Feedback

  2. Re:An acceptable alternative. by Rinzwind · · Score: 2, Informative · on Your Hard Drive Lies to You
    Why am I not surprised at this? First, they decide that a kilobyte = 1000 bytes, rather than the correct value of 1024. This leads the megabyte to be 1000 kilobytes, again, rather than 1024. The gig is likewise 1000 megabytes. You might think, ok, big deal, right?
    Wrong. If you start ranting get your FACTS STRAIGHT. It's been solved in 1998 allready.
    The Standards

    Although computer data is normally measured in binary code, the prefixes for the multiples are based on the metric system. The nearest binary number to 1,000 is 2^10 or 1,024; thus 1,024 bytes was named a Kilobyte. So, although a metric "kilo" equals 1,000 (e.g. one kilogram = 1,000 grams), a binary "Kilo" equals 1,024 (e.g. one Kilobyte = 1,024 bytes). Not surprisingly, this has led to a great deal of confusion. In December 1998, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) approved a new IEC International Standard. Instead of using the metric prefixes for multiples in binary code, the new IEC standard invented specific prefixes for binary multiples made up of only the first two letters of the metric prefixes and adding the first two letters of the word "binary". Thus, for instance, instead of Kilobyte (KB) or Gigabyte (GB), the new terms would be kibibyte (KiB) or gibibyte (GiB).

    Here are brief summaries of the IEC Standard:

    bit bit 0 or 1
    byte B 8 bits
    kibibit Kibit 1024 bits
    kilobit kbit 1000 bits
    kibibyte (binary) KiB 1024 bytes
    kilobyte (decimal) kB 1000 bytes
    megabit Mbit 1000 kilobits
    mebibyte (binary) MiB 1024 kibibytes
    megabyte (decimal) MB 1000 kilobytes
    gigabit Gbit 1000 megabits
    gibibyte (binary) GiB 1024 mebibytes
    gigabyte (decimal) GB 1000 megabytes
    terabit Tbit 1000 gigabits
    tebibyte (binary) TiB 1024 gibibytes
    terabyte (decimal) TB 1000 gigabytes
    petabit Pbit 1000 terabits
    pebibyte (binary) PiB 1024 tebibytes
    petabyte (decimal) PB 1000 terabytes
    exabit Ebit 1000 petabits
    exbibyte (binary) EiB 1024 pebibytes
    exabyte (decimal) EB 1000 petabytes
    Check this: http://www.romulus2.com/articles/guides/misc/bitsb ytes.shtml and this: http://www.physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec04.html# tab5 Stop spreading FUD.
  3. Re:UK Computer Hardware by marcjps · · Score: 1 · on Websites For The Frugal?

    This site collects customer feedback ratings for UK hardware suppliers. It is useful to find out about other customers experiences with a supplier should anything go wrong.

    The vendor offering the cheapest prices may also be the least helpful for you in the event of a problem.

  4. Re:Slight wording difference by dfries · · Score: 1 · on USB 1.1 Renumbered To USB 2?
    What is with all these companies and bits per second anyway? It isn't like they can send 5 bits and and stop. Sure it is a serial connection of 1 bit at a time at the physical connection, but didn't hear people talking about how wide scsi could send 10 mega-short-integers per second. Assuming short integers are 16 bits each. No, they just said 20megabytes per second. I think it is time for them to renumber everything to use bytes per second (with kilo, mega, giga, tera, as acceptible prefixes.)

    The merits for adpoting of KiB, MiB, and GiB as some Linux tools have adpoted will be discussed at a future date.
    Ranting
    Reference

  5. Re:Clearing things up... by jroysdon · · Score: 1 · on Canadian Telco Telus Moves All Call Traffic to the Net

    Ah, bits vs bytes. You are correct, I should have used 64kb (or even 64kbit to be crystal clear). A single voice channel or g.711 stream is 64kbits.

    ATM hardware cell size is 53KBytes (including header info), while the payload cell size is indeed 48KBytes (remember, it is cell, not frame when dealing with ATM).

  6. Re:actually it is 80 GB by hobit · · Score: 1 · on NVidia Accused of Inflating Benchmarks

    giga = 10^9, and an 80 GB hard drive has 80 x 10^9 (10 billion) bytes. This is standard notation that has been in use for at least a hundred years.

    Actually, hard drives changed from using 2^20 for "megabyte" to using 10^6 in about 1992 as I recall.

    This is standard even in most other parts of computing (anything engineering-oriented especially). For example, that 128kbps mp3 you downloaded is 128000 bits/second, not 128*1024 bits/second.


    DRAM is still measured as a base 2 number as is flash, ROMs, and other memory devices. As far as I know only hard drives uses the base 10 value. (What do CD-ROMs use?)

    As a further note, the official terms for the base 2 and base 10 values were approved in '98.

  7. Re:Does anybody know... by gid · · Score: 2 · on Death of Decent Australian Broadband

    Actually if you want to get technical, you're wrong too. Go read over the new IEC standard (issued in 1998)

    Basically what everyone calls a Gigabit (Gb) now, is really a gigabit (Gbit).
    What everyone calls a Gigabyte (GB) now, is really a gibibyte (GiB).
    Megabit is now megabit (Mbit), Megabyte is now mebibyte (MiB) (not to be confused with Men in Black).