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Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes (zeta.one)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

210 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I often find myself explaining the same things in real life and online, so I recently started writing technical blog posts.

This one is about why it was a mistake to call 1024 bytes a kilobyte. It's about a 20min read so thank you very much in advance if you find the time to read it.

Feedback is very much welcome. Thank you.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

That's a relatively recent change though. AFAIK KB=1024 and MB=1024^2 was more common. As the article mentions, it's still commonly used in some sectors:

https://www.jedec.org/standards-documents/dictionary/terms/mega-m-prefix-units-semiconductor-storage-capacity

If you ask someone in their twenties, they're going to say 1000. If you ask someone who's older, or someone who knows a lot about disk storage they're likely to say 1024. Hell, as the article mentions windows uses the 1024 definition, which is one of the rasons why drives always seem smaller than their advertised size. The box says 250 GB, but when you install it windows says it'll say it's less than that. It's not actually less than 250 GB. It's just that windows is using GiB/Gibibytes but calling them GB/Gigabytes.

TLDR: no wonder people are confused.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Only recent in some computers: which used a non-standard definition. The kilo prefix has meant 1000 since at least 1795-- which predates just about any kilobyte.