;-) If one were to estimate the number of transistors in a penitum II at 100 million (?), then if an exchange has ~three relays per number, you would get 300,000 relays in an exchange, which means 334 exchanges with a few spare parts left over! The reason is that using scientific notation/unit prefixes requires more calculation if one is not well practiced. While 90 decibels versus 900 decibels shows the relationship clearly (for those that know what a log is), 90 decibels vs. 90 bels is not quite as simple for some. Has anyone read the book "Innumeracy"? It mostly deals with debunking the concept of probability, but it is interesting in other respects, too. BTW, would you say 'kilobyte' is a misnomer? THe number it signifies isn't 10^3, it's 2^10. For a feeble attempt to get back on topic: was kilobyte always accepted as 1024 bytes? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com