8 Sep
2003
8 Sep
'03
10:14 a.m.
> > Do you mean "DB9" connectors?
> It is almost as common an abuse as
> calling 1024000 (1000 * 1024) a "megabyte"
On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Bryan Pope wrote:
Don't you mean 1,000,000 (What hard drive
manufacturers think of as a
megabyte) as opposed to 1,048,576?
Even that (which has a LITTLE justification) is nowhere near
as offensive as IBM's use of 1,024,000 for "megabyte" for disks.
A common 3.5" HD floppy has two sides, with 80 tracks per side, with 18
sectors per track, and with 512 bytes per sector.
2 * 80 * 18 * 512 gives 1,474,560 bytes.
with 1,048,576 (2^20, 1024*1024) bytes per megabyte,
that works out to 1.40625
In order to get "1.44", IBM creatively "defined"
"megabyte" as being 1000K!
NOTE: although an IBM "megabyte" of disk space is 1,024,000
an IBM "megabyte" of RAM is 1,048,576.
Therefore, the contents of a "megabyte" of IBM RAM won't fit in an IBM
"megabyte" of disk!