Re: why do computer scientists say 1KB=1024 bytes?!!


"JosephKK" <joseph2k@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:hb3wf.13278$oW.10953@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> jmfbahciv@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> In article <1133987193.988482.21730@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> "Eric Gisse" <jowr.pi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>jmfbahciv@xxxxxxx wrote:
>>>> In article <1133929933.977912.103900@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>>>> "Eric Gisse" <jowr.pi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
>>>> >> In article <1133922573.855472.297320@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>>>> >> <onehappymadman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> >> >What's so special about 2^10 that computer scientists say it's 1k?
>>>> >> >The
>>>> >> >SI system says 1k is 1000. 2^10 is not 1000, it is 1024.
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> >Why not just say 1 KB = 2^9.965784285 bytes (= 1000)? If you're
>>>> >> >going to nerd out, then nerd out completely, I say.
>>>> >> >
>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>> >> 1024 is close enough to 1000 for jargon. The meaning is determined
>>>> >> from
>>>> >> the context. If you want to sling around a more exact jargon, then
>>>> >> use kibibyte, mebibyte, and gibibyte.
>>>> >
>>>> >It is "close enough" for the marketing assholes too.
>>>> >
>>>> >My 300 "GB" harddrive manages to have only 270 actual gigs.
>>>>
>>>> Do you mean 270GB available for the user? 30GB is a lot of
>>>> space that has to be reserved for the OS....hmmm....10%
>>>> I can't remember what the ratio is for housekeeping.
>>>>
>>>> Try doing a directory of the hidden files and see how much
>>>> they take up. Subtract from 300-270 and that may give
>>>> you a very rough guesstimate w.r.t. how much space is
>>>> needed to manage the disk geometry. My knowledge is based
>>>> on olden days, so new thingies may have been created for
>>>> bit managments.
>>>
>>>Correction. 279 gigabytes.
>>>
>>>279 gigabytes upon installation and initial format. It was formatted to
>>>NTFS, and it is a single partition. 21 gigs were not dissapeared by my
>>>actions, it is simply marketing ***-uppery that is the cause of this.
>>
>> It has nothing to do with marketing but with bookkeeping. The file
>> information takes up space. This information tells where the file
>> is, which directory, how big, all the date-time stamps that
>> are needed to bookkeep the files, etc. We called this storage
>> overhead. In our scheme, for each file, there were about 100
>> words (36bits/word) that were needed to just maintain the file
>> system. There was another set of files maintained by the OS
>> that managed the physical bits of each disk.
>>
>> Note also that a directory is also a file from the point of view
>> of the operating system. So, if you have 10,000 files on your
>> disk at installation time, you have to multiply 10,000 by
>> the number of bytes it takes to retain information about each
>> file.
>>
>>>
>>>To make things easier to understand back in the day, the term megabyte
>>>and gigabyte were redefined by not those who use them but by those who
>>>sell the products to be in multiples of a thousand. In small drives
>>>that doesn't really matter but in the hundreds of gigs you get amounts
>>>of space dissapearing that is on the order of the average drive size
>>>not too long ago.
>>
>> EVen for teensy little storage media, there had to be data
>> for bookkeeping purposes.
>>
>> For instance, in our scheme, each block had a bit reserved in
>> a file. Thus, if there were 80,000 blocks on the disk,
>> there was file that contained 80,000 bits. Whenever a block
>> went "bad" (cosmic rays were always a convenient explanation),
>> the operating system would mark the corresponding bit in this
>> BADBLK.SYS file and the OS used this info to avoid trying
>> to write good data over a block that couldn't be written.
>>
>> This is another task that we called bookkeeping.
>>
>> /BAH
>>
> No. Eric has told you the actual correct explanation. The lying
> mercantilist advertisers have redefined 100 GB drives to store (sans file
> system overhead) to store 100,000,000,000 bytes, instead of 100*2^30
> bytes.
> As a direct result the drive capacities (before file system overhead) are
> about 6% overstated for immature computer professionals expectations.
> File
> system overhead takes an additional 2% to 5%.

But reason they do that though, is that with 100 GB the only
poeple who are going to be stupid enough to calculate
percent overhead are moron Sun System Programmers,
trying to sell AT&T products at the Wal-Mart Blue Light Special.





> --
> JosephKK
>


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