RE: Licence or license?

Subject: RE: Licence or license?
From: "Martin Polley" <Martinp -at- Surf-com -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 17:01:49 +0200


There seems to be disagreement about what "mega" means--some say
1,000,000, some say 1,048,576. For example, Maxtor defines mega as
1,000,000:

http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_
faqid=420

This, from Atomica (www.atomica.com), sums things up nicely:

mebi
(MEgaBInary) 1,048,576. Whereas mega sometimes means 1,000,000 and other
times 1,048,576, mebi always means 1,048,576. The symbol is "Mi," thus,
2 MiB means 2,097,152 bytes or two mebibytes. In order to avoid
confusion between the decimal and binary numbers, the IEC standardized
the terms kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi, pebi and exbi to represent binary
numbers (compared to kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta and exa).

Also see page 4 of this PDF (from the International Electrotechnical
Commission):

http://www.iec.ch/support/tcnews/archives/tclet6.pdf

And if you are an IEEE member, you may be able to access this page:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/spectrum/aug99/departments/tech.html

HTH,

Martin Polley
Technical Communicator
http://www.surf-com.com/
martinp -at- surf-com -dot- com
Tel: (+972) (4) 9095-732
Mobile: (053) 864-280
ICQ 15617901

Hlade's Law: If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person.
They will find an easier way to do it.



-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Hirons [mailto:peter -at- softwell -dot- co -dot- uk]
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 4:43 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Licence or license?




> MiB=mebibyte (2 to the power 20, or 1,048,576 bytes)
>
> Similarly:
>
> KiB=kibibyte (2 to the power 10, or 1,024 bytes)

I've been in electronic engineering for over 30 years (and a technical
writer for 23 of those) and this is the first time I've seen these. Can
you quote a reference please.

In my experience MB nearly always means 1,048,576 bytes (unless it's
written by a hard disk marketing person :-) If it is critical, then
specify which you mean explicitly.

Sometimes k=1000 and K=1,024 (except in job adverts when they both mean
1000)

Peter


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Check out SnagIt - The Screen Capture Standard!
Download a free 30-day trial from http://www.techsmith.com/rdr/txt/twr
Find out what all the other tech writers, including Dan, already know!

Order RoboHelp X3 in November and receive $100 mail in rebate, FREE WebHelp
Merge Module and the new RoboPDF - add powerful PDF output functionality
to RoboHelp X3. Order online today at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.



Follow-Ups:

Previous by Author: RE: Licence or license?
Next by Author: Best response to an employment rejection?
Previous by Thread: RE: Licence or license?
Next by Thread: Re: Licence or license?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads