>> The SI and the IEEE don't get to redefine megabytes and gigabytes >> any more than disk manufacturerrs do.
> They don't have to redefine anything: the aberrant usage was never > defined in any standard fashion, Calling it aberrant is begging the question. Standard usages don't have to be codified to be standard. > nor was it ever used as consistently as apologists would like to > believe. It certainly was in my experience. I went through my larval stage back in the '80s, in the days when email meant a nightly long-distance phone call and pathalias was a really useful program - and back then, at least in my experience (which included a lot of netnews, ie, not just a handful of people physically near me), usage was indeed as consistent as the `quantifiers' page I pointed at makes it sound. > The general summation is "get over it, it wasn't true anyway". No. The `quantifiers' page I pointed to summarizes well both my experience and my stance. Disk manufacturers, the SI, the IEEE, whoever, are welcome to invent whatever definition they like for gigabyte, but it won't change the way it was used (well, actually, megabyte was more used at the time, but the same argument applies) and it most certainly won't change my stance. I've even noticed, in the last five or ten years, disk advertisements and labels containing a footnote citing their redefinition. To me, this says "we know we're being misleading, we're doing it deliberately, and we have no intention of stopping" - I think they should be hit with "deliberately misleading advertising" charges (which apply to anything that is intended to mislead, regardless of how defensible it may be on any grounds). If the binary meaning were as nonstandard as you would have us believe, there'd be no need for that footnote. Furthermore, note that you buy a "512MB" memory stick or a "4GB" memory stick, not a "536.87+MB" memory stick or a "4.29+GB" memory stick, and there are no "explanatory" footnotes on those ads or packaging. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML [email protected] / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
