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Gibibyte



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 15th 19, 02:22 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default Gibibyte

Why in hell do we need that? (Just to ruin my remaining day's I Suppose).

Rene
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  #2  
Old November 15th 19, 02:57 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default Gibibyte

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
Why in hell do we need that? (Just to ruin my remaining day's I Suppose).

Rene


They could give you your disk capacity in fathoms or furlongs.
Just be glad they selected a useless unit.

Paul
  #3  
Old November 15th 19, 03:03 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default Gibibyte

On 2019-11-14 7:57 p.m., Paul wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
Why in hell do we need that? (Just to ruin my remaining day's I Suppose).

Rene


They could give you your disk capacity in fathoms or furlongs.
Just be glad they selected a useless unit.

Â*Â* Paul


Luckily I may never have to use or calculate it, My abacus just ain't up
to the task. :-)

Rene

  #4  
Old November 15th 19, 07:00 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Ralph Fox
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Posts: 474
Default Gibibyte

On Thu, 14 Nov 2019 19:22:51 -0600, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Subject: Gibibyte
Why in hell do we need that? (Just to ruin my remaining day's I Suppose).


Giga = 1,000,000,000 (decimal, a power of 10: 10^9 -- SI units)
Gibi = 1,073,741,824 (binary, a power of 2: 2^30 -- IEC units)


Gibi is now 21 years old. https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html



--
Kind regards
Ralph
  #5  
Old November 15th 19, 07:39 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 10,881
Default Gibibyte

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Why in hell do we need that?


Marketing Departments, and proper standardization of magnitude prefixes.

Using a power of 2, HDDs would look smaller than using a power of 10.
Marketing could make HDDs look larger to computer illiterates by
describing capacity in, say, megabytes.

2 ^ 20 = â€*1,048,576‬ mebibyte (megabyte misnamed, renamed with new prefix)
10 ^ 6 = 1,000,000 megabyte (properly named)

1.05 megabytes = 1 mebibytes

Back then, and with HDDs being much smaller, any incremental increase in
size at the same price meant more revenue from customers that thought
the same-priced drive gave them a wee bit more capacity.

kilo, mega, giga, tera, and so on were defined as powers of 10, not 2.
Only until computers showed up which work in binary did those prefixes
get misused to represent magnitude. A megabyte should've been 10 ^ 6,
but was first defined as 2 ^ 20; i.e., the mega prefix got misused.
Back then, there were no magnitude prefixes for binary values.

If you are old enough, you would've been around when the naming
correction happened. mega is a decimal magnitude. mebi is a binary
magnitude.
  #6  
Old November 15th 19, 01:55 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
NY[_2_]
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Posts: 37
Default Gibibyte

"Ralph Fox" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 14 Nov 2019 19:22:51 -0600, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Subject: Gibibyte
Why in hell do we need that? (Just to ruin my remaining day's I Suppose).


Giga = 1,000,000,000 (decimal, a power of 10: 10^9 -- SI units)
Gibi = 1,073,741,824 (binary, a power of 2: 2^30 -- IEC units)


Gibi is now 21 years old.
https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html


The problem is not with the concept - which is very laudable - but the
names. "Mebibyte", "gibibyte" and "tebibyte" sound like someone with a
speech impediment (*) trying to say "megabyte", "gigabyte" and "terabyte".


(*) Think of Spitting Image's caricature of Roy "Splattersly" Hattersley ;-)

  #7  
Old November 15th 19, 04:02 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default Gibibyte

On 2019-11-15 6:55 a.m., NY wrote:
"Ralph Fox" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 14 Nov 2019 19:22:51 -0600, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Subject: Gibibyte
Why in hell do we need that? (Just to ruin my remaining day's I
Suppose).


Giga = 1,000,000,000Â*Â* (decimal, a power of 10: 10^9Â* -- SI units)
Gibi = 1,073,741,824Â*Â* (binary,Â* a power of 2:Â* 2^30Â* -- IEC units)


Gibi is now 21 years old.
https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html


The problem is not with the concept - which is very laudable - but the
names. "Mebibyte", "gibibyte" and "tebibyte" sound like someone with a
speech impediment (*) trying to say "megabyte", "gigabyte" and "terabyte".


(*) Think of Spitting Image's caricature of Roy "Splattersly" Hattersley
;-)


They sound like someone who just came out of the dentists with their
mouth still frozen. :-)

Rene
  #8  
Old November 15th 19, 04:43 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Ken Blake[_7_]
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Posts: 569
Default Gibibyte

On 11/14/2019 11:39 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Why in hell do we need that?


Marketing Departments, and proper standardization of magnitude prefixes.

Using a power of 2, HDDs would look smaller than using a power of 10.
Marketing could make HDDs look larger to computer illiterates by
describing capacity in, say, megabytes.

2 ^ 20 = â€*1,048,576‬ mebibyte (megabyte misnamed, renamed with new prefix)
10 ^ 6 = 1,000,000 megabyte (properly named)

1.05 megabytes = 1 mebibytes

Back then, and with HDDs being much smaller, any incremental increase in
size at the same price meant more revenue from customers that thought
the same-priced drive gave them a wee bit more capacity.

kilo, mega, giga, tera, and so on were defined as powers of 10, not 2.
Only until computers showed up which work in binary did those prefixes
get misused to represent magnitude. A megabyte should've been 10 ^ 6,
but was first defined as 2 ^ 20; i.e., the mega prefix got misused.
Back then, there were no magnitude prefixes for binary values.

If you are old enough, you would've been around when the naming
correction happened. mega is a decimal magnitude. mebi is a binary
magnitude.



Everything you say above is correct. But language is not fixed; the
meaning of words changes with time, and the prefixes kilo-, mega-,
giga-, tera-, etc. are an example of this. Today, they represent binary
magnitudes. Should that change have happened? As far as I'm concerned,
no. But it did.

For all practical purposes the prefixes like mebi-, with "b" inserted,
are almost never used, and should be dropped, even though they are
international standards. The only real exception to everyone's using the
decimal terms in a binary way is disk manufacturers. They use the terms
in a decimal way because it makes what offer for sale sound larger. As
far as I'm concerned, it's deceptive advertising. It confuses many
people and should be prohibited. They should be required to state the
sizes of their drives using powers of 2, as everyone else does.




--
Ken
  #9  
Old November 15th 19, 08:36 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 10,881
Default Gibibyte

Ken Blake wrote:

The only real exception to everyone's using the
decimal terms in a binary way is disk manufacturers.


And memory (all types) since addressing is binary.
  #10  
Old November 15th 19, 08:44 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 10,881
Default Gibibyte

NY wrote:

The problem is not with the concept - which is very laudable - but the
names. "Mebibyte", "gibibyte" and "tebibyte" sound like someone with
a speech impediment (*) trying to say "megabyte", "gigabyte" and
"terabyte".


I suspect "bi" was used to denote "binary". It gave a hint to the base.
^^ ^^

Instead of using wholly new magnitude prefixes that everyone would have
to learn and for which adoption would be slow, especially in the
computer industry where change is the norm, they wanted magnitude
prefixes that hinted at the old meanings, so people would instinctively
perceive the magnitude based on the old prefixes, but also hint that the
magnitude was binary instead of decimal.

What would you have come up for magnitude prefixes that represented
magnitudes similar to the decimal-based ones but hint it was a binary
prefix?
  #11  
Old November 15th 19, 09:39 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default Gibibyte

On 2019-11-15 1:44 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
NY wrote:

The problem is not with the concept - which is very laudable - but the
names. "Mebibyte", "gibibyte" and "tebibyte" sound like someone with
a speech impediment (*) trying to say "megabyte", "gigabyte" and
"terabyte".


I suspect "bi" was used to denote "binary". It gave a hint to the base.
^^ ^^

Instead of using wholly new magnitude prefixes that everyone would have
to learn and for which adoption would be slow, especially in the
computer industry where change is the norm, they wanted magnitude
prefixes that hinted at the old meanings, so people would instinctively
perceive the magnitude based on the old prefixes, but also hint that the
magnitude was binary instead of decimal.

What would you have come up for magnitude prefixes that represented
magnitudes similar to the decimal-based ones but hint it was a binary
prefix?


I have no idea, just not my forte.

Rene

  #12  
Old November 15th 19, 10:31 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Carlos E.R.[_3_]
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Posts: 1,356
Default Gibibyte

On 15/11/2019 21.39, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2019-11-15 1:44 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
NY wrote:

The problem is not with the concept - which is very laudable - but the
names. "Mebibyte", "gibibyte" and "tebibyte" sound like someone with
a speech impediment (*) trying to say "megabyte", "gigabyte" and
"terabyte".


I suspect "bi" was used to denote "binary".Â* It gave a hint to the base.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* ^^Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* ^^

Instead of using wholly new magnitude prefixes that everyone would have
to learn and for which adoption would be slow, especially in the
computer industry where change is the norm, they wanted magnitude
prefixes that hinted at the old meanings, so people would instinctively
perceive the magnitude based on the old prefixes, but also hint that the
magnitude was binary instead of decimal.

What would you have come up for magnitude prefixes that represented
magnitudes similar to the decimal-based ones but hint it was a binary
prefix?


I have no idea, just not my forte.


Ah, but the industry does have an idea, and the chose Gibibyte.


--
Cheers, Carlos.
  #13  
Old November 15th 19, 10:33 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Carlos E.R.[_3_]
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Posts: 1,356
Default Gibibyte

On 15/11/2019 16.43, Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/14/2019 11:39 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Why in hell do we need that?


Marketing Departments, and proper standardization of magnitude prefixes.

Using a power of 2, HDDs would look smaller than using a power of 10.
Marketing could make HDDs look larger to computer illiterates by
describing capacity in, say, megabytes.

Â* 2 ^ 20 = â€*1,048,576‬Â* mebibyte (megabyte misnamed, renamed with new
prefix)
10 ^Â* 6 = 1,000,000Â* megabyte (properly named)

1.05 megabytes = 1 mebibytes

Back then, and with HDDs being much smaller, any incremental increase in
size at the same price meant more revenue from customers that thought
the same-priced drive gave them a wee bit more capacity.

kilo, mega, giga, tera, and so on were defined as powers of 10, not 2.
Only until computers showed up which work in binary did those prefixes
get misused to represent magnitude.Â* A megabyte should've been 10 ^ 6,
but was first defined as 2 ^ 20; i.e., the mega prefix got misused.
Back then, there were no magnitude prefixes for binary values.

If you are old enough, you would've been around when the naming
correction happened.Â* mega is a decimal magnitude.Â* mebi is a binary
magnitude.



Everything you say above is correct. But language is not fixed; the
meaning of words changes with time, and the prefixes kilo-, mega-,
giga-, tera-, etc. are an example of this. Today, they represent binary
magnitudes.


No, they don't. They represent now decimal magnitudes, as previously.


--
Cheers, Carlos.
  #14  
Old November 15th 19, 10:34 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Carlos E.R.[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,356
Default Gibibyte

On 15/11/2019 20.36, VanguardLH wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:

The only real exception to everyone's using the
decimal terms in a binary way is disk manufacturers.


And memory (all types) since addressing is binary.


Not on a rotating disk...


--
Cheers, Carlos.
  #15  
Old November 15th 19, 11:03 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Ken Blake[_7_]
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Posts: 569
Default Gibibyte

On 11/15/2019 2:33 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 15/11/2019 16.43, Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/14/2019 11:39 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

Why in hell do we need that?

Marketing Departments, and proper standardization of magnitude prefixes.

Using a power of 2, HDDs would look smaller than using a power of 10.
Marketing could make HDDs look larger to computer illiterates by
describing capacity in, say, megabytes.

Â* 2 ^ 20 = â€*1,048,576‬Â* mebibyte (megabyte misnamed, renamed with new
prefix)
10 ^Â* 6 = 1,000,000Â* megabyte (properly named)

1.05 megabytes = 1 mebibytes

Back then, and with HDDs being much smaller, any incremental increase in
size at the same price meant more revenue from customers that thought
the same-priced drive gave them a wee bit more capacity.

kilo, mega, giga, tera, and so on were defined as powers of 10, not 2.
Only until computers showed up which work in binary did those prefixes
get misused to represent magnitude.Â* A megabyte should've been 10 ^ 6,
but was first defined as 2 ^ 20; i.e., the mega prefix got misused.
Back then, there were no magnitude prefixes for binary values.

If you are old enough, you would've been around when the naming
correction happened.Â* mega is a decimal magnitude.Â* mebi is a binary
magnitude.



Everything you say above is correct. But language is not fixed; the
meaning of words changes with time, and the prefixes kilo-, mega-,
giga-, tera-, etc. are an example of this. Today, they represent binary
magnitudes.


No, they don't. They represent now decimal magnitudes, as previously.




You are free to use words any way you want. I disagree; to me they
represent binary magnitudes. If I talk about a kilobyte, I mean 1,024
bytes, and so on.


--
Ken
 




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