It wasn't/isn't. It's nothing to do with Americans. It was (and often still is) because of binary.
2 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024.
So no, kilo is not always a thousand when dealing with computers.
Comment on Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes
fiercetemptation@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It is really not that difficult. Kilo is always thousand.
1.000 grams = 1 kilogram 1.000 meters = 1 kilometer
Maybe it’s harder for Americans with their fantasy units.
Hyperreality@kbin.social 9 months ago
wischi@programming.dev 9 months ago
That’s what the blog post is about 😉
fiercetemptation@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Indeed. I only commented, because I don’t think such a lengthy post about this is very relevant. It’s not hard. Well at least for non-americans (that seem to be very triggered by my comment). :D
Primarily0617@kbin.social 9 months ago
why are you the way that you are?
angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com 9 months ago
I’ve honestly just come to the conclusion that being an asshole about the fact that other countries exist is just the continental past time of Europe.
Like, Americans get the most of it but they’re like this toward people from other European countries too.
Lmaydev@programming.dev 9 months ago
It’s because the power of 2 makes more sense to the computer.
smokin_shinobi@lemmy.world 9 months ago
This is such a strange post and comment section to me. Computers work because of binary.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 9 months ago
which is 2-state, which is why it's powers of 2
PupBiru@kbin.social 9 months ago
which is why we have kibi, mebi, gibi, etc
wewbull@feddit.uk 9 months ago
Which nobody uses in the industry because we all know that storage uses base2 prefixes.
fiercetemptation@lemmy.world 9 months ago
No. Kilo is 1.000/thousand. Kibi is 1.024. it’s just normal SI-units.
Of course it’s hard for Americans that don’t use metric. 😉
Lmaydev@programming.dev 9 months ago
It’s actually a decimal Vs binary thing.
1000 and 1024 take the same amount of bytes so 1024 makes more sense to a computer.
Nothing to do with metric as computers don’t use that.
fiercetemptation@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It has everything to do with the metric system. And you got it exactly the wrong way around.
Kilo is simply an SI-prefix. It’s thousand. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte. Let me quote that here: “The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix kilo as a multiplication factor of 1.000; therefore, one kilobyte is 1.000 bytes.”
That specifically is where the confusion arises. Someone went and said “oh, computers count in binary so a kilobyte is 1.024.” It’s not. A kilobyte is 1.000 bytes, because kilo is thousand.
To help fix the confusion, a different prefix was created: kibi which is specifically for multiples of 2.
The thing is: for people not using the metric system your argument may have merit. But once you have accepted that metric is superior in literally every way (also why NASA etc all use metric), this confusion just disappears.