Article View: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Article #84Re: Macs + Quadras obsolete? was: How fast is the P5 chip?
From: J J Farrell
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1992 20:16
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1992 20:16
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1589 bytes
In article <RV2cTB2w165w@happy.nuts.almanac.bc.ca> bcrock@happy.nuts.almanac.bc.ca (Brad Crockett) writes: >boyne@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (Art Boyne) writes: > >> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc, blong@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Brandon C Long) writes: >> >> > GIPS??? >> > What ever happened to BIPS (Billions of instructions per second)? >> >> The problem is that "billion" means 1,000 million in the U.S., but >> 1,000,000 million in the U.K. "Giga" is unambiguous. >> >> (The word for 1,000 million in the U.K. is "milliard"). > >I don't believe it. Any UK residents out there care to confirm >this? It's quite right - "billion" in British english has traditionally always meant 1 million million. However, in the interests of avoiding confusion, a few years ago the U.K. government decreed that in financial contexts, "billion" was changed to mean "thousand million". This may have avoided confusion in the international financial markets, but I'm sure you can imagine the effect it has had on general usage of the word. In practice (for instance in the TV news) the rule now is "if a factor of 1000 matters, don't use the word billion".
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!pipex!unipalm!uknet!dsbc!jjf From: jjf@dsbc.icl.co.uk (J J Farrell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc Subject: Re: Macs + Quadras obsolete? was: How fast is the P5 chip? Message-ID: <887@dsbc.icl.co.uk> Date: 30 Oct 92 20:16:42 GMT References: <12160034@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM> <RV2cTB2w165w@happy.nuts.almanac.bc.ca> Followup-To: alt.usage.english Organization: International Computers Limited Lines: 26