Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:58:30 +0000 | From | Mike Jagdis <> | Subject | Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB in Configure.help. |
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Mike Eldridge wrote:
> i have seen kB instead of KB in many places. and the only place i've > ever seen kilo abbreviated as K has been with respect to binary. > >>[however I've never seen 'Kg' instead of 'kg', but 'mB' or 'mb' are ugly >>when compared with 'Mb' and 'MB', not counting that 'b' is bit and 'B' is >>byte ... well ... it's confusing sometimes ...] >> > > i was going to comment about simply using lowercase equivalents, but > then milli already has 'm', although the concept of a millibyte (or even > millibit) is absurd.
Why? For instance a millibyte/s might be a hearbeat across a LAN every hour or so or it might be a control traffic requirement for a deep space probe. You might not have an immediate use for the term but it has a specific meaning - and certainly isn't "absurd" (see definition on http://www.dict.org).
Engineers not (yet) being familiar with the relatively new SI (and IEEE) binary prefixes is just about acceptable. "Engineers" that misuse k/K and (worse!) m/M should be in a different field entirely. The SI system is generally taught as basic science to pre-teenagers. There is no excuse!
Mike
P.S. Merry Christmas / Mid winter festival / whatever you choose to celebrate :-)
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