🚀 go-pugleaf

In <5a37s6$lrm@opera.iinet.net.au> hart@opera.iinet.net.au (Leigh Hart) writes:

>Tony Langdon (tlang@freeway.DIALix.oz.au) wrote:
>: 
>: I disagree.  I've always known bandwidth to be measuered in bits per
>: second:
>: 
>: You buy a modem, the speed is given in bits / second. (e.g. 2400bps,
>: 14400 bps, 28.8k bits ps).
>: 
>: You set up an Ethernet in a company.  What speed do you use?  10 M
>: _bits_/sec?  100 Mbits / sec ?

>I was always tought:

>k = 1000 
>K = 1024 
>m = 1000000 
>M = 1048576 
>g = 1000000000 
>G = 1073741824 

>b = bits
>B = bytes

Now that's like throwing a sponge to a drowning man! :-)

MARKETING of technology obeys no rules. The case-sensitivity of marketing
literture is defined by aesthetitcs, not facts!

"mega" (M) is the metric prefix which means 10^6 (million)
"milli" (m) is the metric prefix which means 10^-6 (millionth)
[I won't digress into the others.]

One should *never* use "m" as a prefix unless one really means it!
Or do you propose that we all try to keep a 300 mm rule on our desks? :-)

The alt.usage.english FAQ has some words about this, and it's well worth
reading.

The "M" prefix isn't even used consistently within computing
technology:  Disk drive megabytes are millions of bytes - for marketing
reasons, because they look almost 5% bigger! The drives still have
512-byte physical sectors - or some multiple of it.

I *always* spell out if I mean bytes or bits, the first time around,
unless it's "obvious" from the context. In serial communications, it's
always been *bits* because that is the number of "transitions" on the
"wire". A "character" can be encoded in many ways on a serial line - as
short as 5 bits, and as long as 11 bits. And that's only in _my_
limited experience.

>Thus:

>64kb is 64000 bits 
>64Kb is 65536 bits 
>64kB is 64000 bytes
>64KB is 65536 bytes

>etc.

Not always. I wish it were that simple.
-- 
Bernd Felsche {speaking for himself}
MetaPro Systems Pty Ltd, 130 Fauntleroy Avenue,
Redcliffe, Western Australia 6104
Phone: +61 9 479 3722    Fax: +61 9 479 3720