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New Power-of-Two Prefixes?

Posted by justin++ on from the just-a-proposal dept.

EngrBohn writes "The August issue of IEEE Spectrum mentions a proposal by the International Electrotechnical Commission to introduce new prefixes for words that indicate powers-of-two (page 18 of the print issue). This would replace kilobytes (kB) with kibibytes (KiB), megabytes (MB) with mebibytes (MiB), gigabytes (gB) with gibibytes (GiB), and so on. The rationale is two-fold. First is to restore the integrity of the SI prefixes to meaning powers-of-ten. Second is to eliminate ambiguity over whether, for example, a megabyte is 10**6 bytes or 2**20 bytes. Think this is a non-issue? I noticed this morning that Iomega's 100MB Zip disks have a 10**8 byte capacity, and Maxtor also considers a megabyte to be 10**6 bytes. "

2 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Kibibyte? That's one letter from... by Masem · · Score: 3

    Anyone else read that as "Kibobyte"? We really
    want a computer term that closely related to
    Kibo?? ;-)

    --
    "Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
    "I can see my house from here!" - ST:
  2. Maybebytes? by Signal+11 · · Score: 3

    Maybebytes: It could be a byte. Then again, it might not.

    Gibytes: How many bodies are on the floor after you get done playing Quake.

    Kilibytes: What you call somebody who has contributed to the Gibytes of another player.



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