Origin or 1.44 MV FD label [WAS: RE: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20141205)]

[Tom Gardner]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Fred Cisin [mailto:cisin at xenosoft.com] 
>Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2014 12:40 PM
>To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
>Subject: Re: Weekly Classic Computer Trivia Question (20141205)

>>On Sat, 6 Dec 2014, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> I should actually do my math before commenting. :-) It just happens, 
>> that by a funny accident, 1440*1024 is actually 1,474,560.
>>
>> But still. The actual size of the floppy wasn't decided because you 
>> pulled out 1440*1024, but because of the format of the darn thing.
>> 1.44MB is just the closest "nice" number you can come up with after 
>> the fact as a way to talk about the capacity of the thing.
>>
>> It is not an exact number, but they seldom are, when we talk about 
>> storage. People like to round things off, to make it easier to talk
about.

>It is NOT a "nice" number.
>Honest numbers would be either 1.47 or 1.4 There is no legitimate way to
come up with 1.44 unless you cheat and MIX powers of 10 and powers of 2.
__________________
It comes from a double capacity 720 KB FDD - which in this case are actually
KiB and not kB
However, in an incredible bit of marketing stupidity it was labeled 1.44 MB,
since 2*720 KB/1000 = 1.44 MB
Tom