Re: Bad Metric ... 1k = 1024 or 1000?

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 24 Oct 1999 07:53:22 GMT, supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:

>Then why did the computer folks start using the kilo
>designation in the first place?  This is not a "well they
>don't know a thing about binary or hex" matter.  It is a
>matter of definition.  Kilo means one thousand of
>something.

The term kilo was probably coined by technologists rather than
engineers because engineers wouldn't have used the term kilo because
it wasn't exact but the technologists would just have figure "heck,
its close enough".  :-)

Why create a new term for something that is so close?  Besides, it
only applies to computer related stuff anyways and all the computer
people back then knew about the difference.  The only reason this is
coming up as a problem now is that there are so many people who know
nothing about how computers work using computers.

Besides, if you were to tell someone that a file was 262,144 bytes,
262 kB, 256 kB, .262 MB or .25 MB, they wouldn't care as it doesn't
really make that much difference.  :-)

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