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

submitted 10 months ago by wischi@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

206 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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[–] forrgott@lemm.ee 0 points 10 months ago

Based on your other replies, no, I absolutely will not waste my time reading your opinion piece.

And, a blog post is just another way of saying this is your opinion. That's all it is.

[+] Sheeple@lemmy.world -11 points 10 months ago (19 children)

[deleted]

[–] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

"Kilo" means 1000 under the official International System of Units.

With some computer hardware, it's more convenient to use 1024 for a kilobyte and in the early days nobody really cared that it was slightly wrong. It has to do with the way memory is physically laid out in a memory chip.

These days, people do care and the correct term for 1024 is "Kibi" (kilo-binary). For example Kibibyte. There's also Gibi, Tebi, Exbi, etc.

It's mostly CPUs that use 1024 - and also RAM because it't tightly coupled to the CPU. The internet, hard drives, etc, usually use 1000 because they don't have any reason to use a weird numbering system.

[–] mb_@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

Weird numbering system? Things are still stored in blocks of 8 bits at the end, it doesn't matter.

When it gets down to what matter on hard drives, every byte still uses 8 bits, and all other numbers for people actually working with computer science that matter are multiples of 8, not 10.

And because all internal systems use base 8, base 10 is "slower" (not that it matters any longer.

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