That's a relatively recent change though. AFAIK depending on the context, it used to be 1024 and was for for many many years, which is why that definition is still also used quite widely.
Comment on Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes
PupBiru@kbin.social 10 months agokilobyte (KB) is 1000, kibibyte (KiB) is 1024
at least according the the IEC, and id tend to go with them… SI units say that kilo means 1000
Hyperreality@kbin.social 10 months ago
Eyron@lemmy.world 10 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.
smokin_shinobi@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I went to school before that took effect. But go ahead and downvote me for chiming in I guess.
PupBiru@kbin.social 10 months ago
i didn’t downvote you, and i went to school before a bunch of things but technology evolves and either we evolve with it or we end up being just straight up wrong in a modern context
smokin_shinobi@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Thanks for the lesson I guess.
kick_out_the_jams@kbin.social 10 months ago
To be consistent they should call bytes bibytes though, and I don't think they do.
if i'm ever writing technical manuals and docs I'll just be as precise about the actual numbers as I can. (not very likely)
PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
That was a retcon, though. Initially the SI prefixes were used and used 1024 instead of 1000. I feel like people started getting more fussy about it as hard drives started hitting hundreds of gb.
Eyron@lemmy.world 10 months ago
How do you define a recon? We’re kilograms 1024 grams, too? When did that change. It seems it’s meant 1000 since metric was created in the 1700s, along with a binary prefix.
From the looks of it, software vendors were trying to recon the definition of “kilo” to be 1024.
PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Kilo was used outside of decimal power rules for data storage/memory because it could only use binary powers at smaller scales. Well, that’s the standard we went with anyway.
They didn’t ‘retcon’ the use of kilo as applicable to other units, they went with the closest power of two. When hard drive manufacturers decided to use power of tens it confused people and eventually got standardized by making kb power of ten and kib power of two.
From the looks of it you aren’t familiar with the situation.
Eyron@lemmy.world 10 months ago
This is all explained in the post we’re commenting on. The standard “kilo” prefix, from the metric system, predates modern computing and even the definition of a byte: 1700s vs 1900s. It seems very odd to make the argument that the older definition is the one trying to retcon.
The binary usage in software was and is common, but there’s definitely more recent, and causes a lot of confusion because it doesn’t match the older and bigger standard. Computers are very good at numbers, they never should have tried the hijack in existing prefix, especially when it was already defined by existing International standards. One might be able to argue that the us haven’t really adopted the metric system at the point of development, but the usage of 1,000 to define the kilo, is clearly older than the usage of 1,024 to define the kilobyte. The main new (last 100 years) thing here, is 1,024 bytes is a kibibyte.
Kibi is the recon. Not kilo.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Only CPUs and RAM use 1024. Floppy disks going way back to the 1970’s used 1000.
PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Fair on the floppy thing. I was too young to have worried about that.