From owner-freebsd-doc Wed Feb 20 17:40:59 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from vms4.rit.edu (vms4.isc.rit.edu [129.21.3.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D659537B400 for ; Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:40:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from sonic.rit.edu ([129.21.10.1]) by ritvax.isc.rit.edu (PMDF V5.2-32 #40294) with ESMTPA id <01KEIDT4F2QQF37EMK@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> for doc@freebsd.org; Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:40:48 EST Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:39:34 -0500 From: Matt Penna Subject: Re: inconsistent use of data units In-reply-to: <20020221003116.GA11893@hades.hell.gr> X-Sender: mdp1261@vmspop.isc.rit.edu To: doc@freebsd.org Message-id: <5.1.0.14.2.20020220202721.01da82a0@vmspop.isc.rit.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT References: <3C743707.3080505@adacel.com> <3C743707.3080505@adacel.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 02:31 AM 2/21/02 +0200, you wrote: >On 2002-02-21 10:53, Michael Wardle wrote: > > Hi. > > > > There is a standard on how to represent data sizes here: > > http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html > > > > I suggest that the document is updated to consistently use this standard. > >Reading that page, all I have to say is "NO. Good grief, no." >Mebibit ? Kibibit ? Ye gods. > >I would probably prefer it if we consistently used KB for Kilobyte(s), >and MB for Megabytes, but having different symbols for units that are >multiples of 1024 and other symbols/contractions for multiples of 1000! >No, please no. Seeing this thread jogged my memory about something else. Way, way back (10+ years), I was taught that a lower-case 'b,' e.g., 2400bps, meant "bits" and a capital 'b,' e.g., 640kB, meant "bytes." Is this correct? If it is, then the confusion of these is a mistake I see quite frequently, too. Incidentally, I agree with Giorgos - "mebibits?" I'm all for being technically correct, but correctness at the expense of clarity is probably not the best idea. Mebibits is not in any of my standard English dictionaries. If I saw the term outside the context of this discussion, I would have no idea what was being said. Matt -- Matt Penna mdp1261@rit.edu ICQ: 399825 S0ba on AOLIM "The trouble with computers, of course, is that they're very sophisticated idiots." -Dr. Who To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message