28 Mar
2023
28 Mar
'23
5:34 p.m.
On 3/28/23 17:03, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
"1.4M" disks (1,474,560 bytes of data /
1.474 SI Megabytes / 1.40625
Mebibytes) are often called "1.44M", because that number is derived from
1,024,000 bytes per "megabyte" (2^10 * 10^6, 1000 * 1024), giving 1.44.
I can find no defensible reason for that corrupted size for a "megabyte".
Therefore, I call them "1.4M" (1.40625), NOT "1.44M"
Unfortunately, we're stuck with the terminology. We probably should
call them 2.0 megabyte floppies (at 500Khz, you can fit 12,500
unformatted 8 bit bytes on a track, so 12,500*2*80 = is exactly
2,000,000 bytes.
Or, as the young clerk at the Fedex counter asked the other day, "What's
a floppy disk?". Yes, Fred, we're THAT old.
--Chuck