Cal said:Base 16 only that each hex character is made up of four bits (2^4).
Bytes were created out of convenience. A byte has 256 possible values
which allowed them to represent the entire alphabet, integer numbers,
special characters and still have room for control characters.
Cal Vanize said:Robert Heiling wrote
Base 16 only that each hex character is made up of four bits (2^4).
Bytes were created out of convenience.
A byte has 256 possible values which allowed them to represent the entire alphabet, integer
numbers, special characters and still have room for control characters.
Rod said:You can do that with 7 bits too.
(e-mail address removed) wrote
More fool you.
Corse it isnt, the multiplier is completely independant of the unit being multiplied.
Wrong, as always. Most obviously with comms speeds which have never done that.
They dont do that exclusively. There have been plenty that didnt
even use bytes at all and which had none byte mulitple word sizes.
Bytes are a relative recent thing computer wise.
Irrelevant to other collections of bytes which arent referenced by
x bits, most obviously with hard drive capacity and comms speeds.
Wrong again, it is in fact used quite recently with some flavours of linux.
Wrong, most obviously with comms speeds where they never did.
Only the pig ignorant fools with hard drive capacity and comms speeds.
Pathetic really.
There was no 'new terminology' with comms speeds, the decimal
multipliers were always what was used with bytes and bits.
Only with SOME memory, memory that is binary organised and that isnt even all memory.-
IMO kony has been on the losing side of this whole argument. I'm somewhat
surprised.
In fact, it is usually represented by 2 hexadecimal characters (base 16), not to
be confused with decimal (base 10).
It became convenient to adopt those terms by convention, but that doesn't change
their true meaning. The burden in any discussion is upon people to define their
terms, either implicitly or explicitly. When speaking of data storage, the
original meaning of those terms is in effect and there is no convention in
effect to have them mean otherwise. If some people misunderstand that, then it's
like any similar situation where they need to educate themselves.
Whenever I have used those terms in discussions with fellow software types, it
has always been clear as to how the terms were being used in any given context.
If not, it's pretty easy to clarify by asking a question.
And likewise for Kilobytes in data transmission.
Depends om who's talking and if they are using a certain convention. Unless they
have agreed to use 1024 for kilo as a convention, then kilo is 1000 as in
kilogram, kilometer, etc and also Kilobytes, as in KBps.
Bob-
[email protected] said:interesting.
Would you say that the convention goes by the organisation(whether
binary or not). And Convention follows that.
I notice that windows measures hard drive capacity as 2^x.
I don't know whether windows measures communication speed as 2^x? I
always assumed it does.
I can imagine that windows would just use 2^x because it wants to use
one uniform convention.
Is windows wrong? What of other operating systems? and partitioning
programs?
[email protected] said:interesting. I wasn't aware of the data transmission convention
regarding Bytes , being standard SI.
As Word size grows (and i'm not sure if Word size, is size of data bus
or size of cpu registers). But if we're talking "data bus", then I
suppose that'd be standard SI too ?
What would you say is the convention for HDDs..
If the convention comes from designing them then it may not be not so
well known generally because the average person isn't designing them?!
If designers go by the apparently non binary organisation. And use
10^x, then it may be better known.
Most peoples' usage of the term Byte with HDDs goes by how the OS
defines it. Windows uses the 2^x form. If other OSs and software
does the same then perhaps 2^x should be the convention for HDDs.
No need to even get into that as you're dealing with the finished product. The
manufacturer reports the size in base 10. Windows reports in base 2. It's a
surprise only to the uninformed.
Windows *reports* *filesystem* space in 2^x units of measure.
It doesn't. Windows reports communication speed base 10, as in 100 Mbps.
It's the responsibility of the reader/user to know if a convention is being used
or not used. There is no conspiracy in regards to size of HD's, only poorly
informed buyers.
only definition, or it is invalid in binary.
In the end, use of a different base to express a quantity
MUST NECESSARILY be expressing the same quantity, not
something rounded off (unless it is expressly stated to be
rounded off).
1000.
[email protected] said:when you say "base 2" and "base 10" you mean base as in
base^exponent, rather than binary and decimal, right?
As i'm sure we agree,
We could use any number system (binary,decimal,octal) to represent
either number.. A different number system doesn't change the
quantity.
Correct.
The quantitiy is changing due to convention for kilo,mega e.t.c. Not
due to a change of number system.
<snip>
[email protected] said:maybe for Ethernet.
But what about download and upload speeds. ISP's talk of 512KB
download, 256KB upload.
512 and 256 are those numbers that are written with a flick of a
binary digit. But is the count for Kilo using 2^10? As your reasoning
might indicate looking at the numbers. Or does it use 10^3 as your
reasoning went that data comm uses 10^x.
Suppose at one point your download drops from 128KB to 100KB/s I
wouldn't then conclude that before Kilo was 1024 and now Kilo is
1000.
The count doesn't give it away at all.
I suppose comm speeds would encompass speed of bytes on the data bus
(which may one day be in KB), on an IDE or SATA cable, CDROM speed,
ADSL line e.t.c. I'm not sure that all comm speeds would use the
decimal convention. I don't know. But I take issue with the
reasoning you use behind your claim that data comm is all 10^x.
With technologies there are battles between engineers and marketers.
Or worse, engineers go with the market and there is not much
division. It would be naiive to think there is no politics in
choosing conventions or terminology. To dismiss the politics as "a
conspiracy" is silly (on 2 levels - since you imply that conspiracies
should be dismissed- a silly implication to make!).
I don't know if it was an innocent choice, or marketting. But the only
way I might assume it wasn't marketting, is if Rod is right that this
(i'll say, choice of convention) is to do with whether a thing uses
what he calls "a binary organisation " or not.
GT said:Robert, Kony, everyone:
If 1 kilobits = 1000, then 8 kilobits = 8000. There are 8 bits in a byte, so
8 kilobits = 1 kilobyte, so how bytes in 1 kilobyte? If you say 1024, then
where did you get the extra 24 from?
That muddies the discussion and has a major error of omission. Here's a
corrected version.
If 1 kilobits = 1000, then 8 kilobits = 8000.
If 1 kilobits = 1024, then 8 kilobits = 8096.
You can't switch conventions in midstream.
Why are you ducking my question, kony?
"Bits", as you know, is a computer term and its usage in the computerese jargon
predates "bytes". If "bytes" has some sort of effect on the meaning of kilo,
because it is computerese, then "bits" would also have that same effect
following your logic.
How many bits, according to you, are meant by kilobits?
IMO kony has been on the losing side of this whole argument. I'm somewhat
surprised.
Robert said:If 1 kilobits = 1000, then 8 kilobits = 8000.
If 1 kilobits = 1024, then 8 kilobits = 8096.
You can't switch conventions in midstream.
Bob
GT said:I am not muddled.
Using base 10 (decimal). kilo = 10^3 = 1000 not 1024. Kilo
never means 1024.
I didn't! The point I was trying to make is that we can't change the
convention at all, or this entire problem arrises. Let me try again...
We seem to all agree that 1 kilobit (1Kb) is 10^3 bits = 1000 bits. So 8
kilobits is 8x10^3 = 8000 bits. Given that there are 8 bits in a byte, then
8 kilobits must equal 1 kilobyte. So 8Kb = 1KB = 8000 bits = 1000 bytes. 1KB
= 1000 Bytes. It can't be 1024. It isn't 1024. 1024 has nothing to do with
it. This is my point. my question is where does everyone keep getting the
extra 24 from? The fact that 2^10 = 1024 is unfortunately close to 1000, but
is totally irrelevant - the term kilo means 10^3, which in decimal is 1000.
FULL STOP.