The CS people f*cked up, plain and simple, when they used the base10 names for base2 values. Yeah, it was a notation of convenience, but it was a lazy and sloppy use of it. There's no reason why we need to perpetuate that error.
I have two reasons for perpetrating the error:
Gibibyte is a stupid word
Everyone knows what I mean when I say Gigabyte
On the latter subject, non-techy people do know what a Gigabyte is. They have never heard the word Gibibyte.
My ideal solution is to ban drive manufacturers using decimal measures to report on an inherently power-of-two quantity such as disk space. There should be no decimal measure for disk space, since such a measure does not make sense.
On the latter subject, non-techy people do know what a Gigabyte is. They have never heard the word Gibibyte.
They didn't know what a gigabyte was a while ago, either. As with many things, a bit of education removes the problem. It also explains to them the 'missing disk space' issue.
Quote:
My ideal solution is to ban drive manufacturers using decimal measures to report on an inherently power-of-two quantity such as disk space. There should be no decimal measure for disk space, since such a measure does not make sense.
Alright, you lost me. How is disk space an 'inherently power-of-two quantity'? Because it's accessed by a computer, which uses binary address space representation? Hmm. Perhaps.
It's still a misuse of the established SI units, which are there fundamentally to provide *precision*. The *binary- units are standard, agreed upon, and understood. It's time to start using them.
My ideal solution is to ban drive manufacturers using decimal measures to report on an inherently power-of-two quantity such as disk space. There should be no decimal measure for disk space, since such a measure does not make sense.
Yes that's a possible solution as well. The world has TWO options
1/ by HDD manufacturers.
Release next HDD models using new binary prefixes. So When they release the 1 TB HDD, in brackets they can have "(approx. 931.32 GiB)" in the box and in manual.
2/ by Apple/Microsoft OS developers
Change labels in OS from KB, MB, GB to KiB, MiB, GiB etc.
It seems sadly none of them happen. Linux uses binary prefixes by the way.
Alright, you lost me. How is disk space an 'inherently power-of-two quantity'? Because it's accessed by a computer, which uses binary address space representation? Hmm. Perhaps.
It's still a misuse of the established SI units, which are there fundamentally to provide *precision*. The *binary- units are standard, agreed upon, and understood. It's time to start using them.
You're right, it IS a misuse of the established SI units. It was devised from scientific convenience rather than precision. However, renaming kilo to kibi, mega to mebi, is also derived out of convenience (using identical consonant/vowel combos on the first half of the word) and cause FAR more confusion that if they had simply renamed the entire system with no connection to the later.
Now we have 2 systems that are being used incorrectly and interchangeably (due to lack of knowledge). The first problem was simply of nomenclature, the second is the real confusion.
As I see it, no one will ever use the work mebibyte. Not only is it difficult rolling off the tounge, it just sounds stupid.
IMO, the only way to completely solve this problem is for operating systems to display by default all file sizes in the decimal system. As was mention earlier, it could be a preference that could be changed to display MiB, etc or both systems simultaneously.
The truth of the mater is that people can easily adjust to a slight adjustment in calculation (most probably wouldn't even notice), but they will never change their wording.
You might get away with that for the end user in disk space, but you're not going to be able to do that with a) RAM, b) developers, etc.
RAM *is*, and will continue to need to be, measured in powers of two simply due to addressing needs of the computer. (Amorya, this is much more an inherent power of two than the drive, if you want a good example.) So you're still going to have the issue of 32'MB' suddenly becoming 33.55MB. While this might cause a slight initial wave of "Whoohoo!" at the larger number, would you rather deal with 1GiB of RAM, or 1.074GB? (And really, it's 1.073741824GB...) The latter number is the correct one, the former has the correct units. I think most people would find it easier to change the unit than try and work in the new numbering.
And that doesn't even get into the developer issues, where the difference is notable, necessary, and even more in need of being precise.
I think the prefixes make perfect sense, and really... is gibi- really any more stupid sounding than giga-? You're just used to the latter, is all. The binary prefixes have the advantage of looking like the SI units, so converting mentally is simple, but the -bi- hammers home that it's a binary base. I think this makes more sense than coming up with some arbitrary new naming scheme with no relation to the familiar one.
You're right, however, that it'll probably never catch on. We can't even seem to move to SI as a culture, and that's so brain-dead obvious that if we can't do that... well...
We can't even seem to move to SI as a culture, and that's so brain-dead obvious that if we can't do that... well...
With all the things the USA is criticized for internationally these days, I can't believe that people overlook the lack of the metric system. The USA holding out causes unnecessary problems for everyone (including Americans).
Is there any chance that a worldwide movement of change for GiB etc could break the dam and bring on the metric system in the US (and even better, replace 8.5x11 etc paper sizes with A4 and A series sizes).
This is it! Our chance to change the world for the better.
Yes, and one major reason why changing even imprecise terminology mid-stream just isn't palatable to most folks in the business. So they just go the ostrich route.
Comments
the packaging could change to saying 4.4GB and that way it complies with the conventions used in operating systems.
At which point it would be scientifically incorrect.
I'm now confused. Possibly.
Hi, read this article and hopefully you will understand the root of the problem.
http://members.optus.net/alexey/prefBin.xhtml
The CS people f*cked up, plain and simple, when they used the base10 names for base2 values. Yeah, it was a notation of convenience, but it was a lazy and sloppy use of it. There's no reason why we need to perpetuate that error.
I have two reasons for perpetrating the error:
- Gibibyte is a stupid word
- Everyone knows what I mean when I say Gigabyte
On the latter subject, non-techy people do know what a Gigabyte is. They have never heard the word Gibibyte.My ideal solution is to ban drive manufacturers using decimal measures to report on an inherently power-of-two quantity such as disk space. There should be no decimal measure for disk space, since such a measure does not make sense.
Amorya
I have two reasons for perpetrating the error:
- Gibibyte is a stupid word
- Everyone knows what I mean when I say Gigabyte
On the latter subject, non-techy people do know what a Gigabyte is. They have never heard the word Gibibyte.They didn't know what a gigabyte was a while ago, either. As with many things, a bit of education removes the problem. It also explains to them the 'missing disk space' issue.
My ideal solution is to ban drive manufacturers using decimal measures to report on an inherently power-of-two quantity such as disk space. There should be no decimal measure for disk space, since such a measure does not make sense.
Alright, you lost me. How is disk space an 'inherently power-of-two quantity'? Because it's accessed by a computer, which uses binary address space representation? Hmm. Perhaps.
It's still a misuse of the established SI units, which are there fundamentally to provide *precision*. The *binary- units are standard, agreed upon, and understood. It's time to start using them.
My ideal solution is to ban drive manufacturers using decimal measures to report on an inherently power-of-two quantity such as disk space. There should be no decimal measure for disk space, since such a measure does not make sense.
Yes that's a possible solution as well. The world has TWO options
1/ by HDD manufacturers.
Release next HDD models using new binary prefixes. So When they release the 1 TB HDD, in brackets they can have "(approx. 931.32 GiB)" in the box and in manual.
2/ by Apple/Microsoft OS developers
Change labels in OS from KB, MB, GB to KiB, MiB, GiB etc.
It seems sadly none of them happen. Linux uses binary prefixes by the way.
If you're going to be that anal about it, then shouldn't you be using "octets" rather than "bytes"?
Only the French care about such nonsense.
Alright, you lost me. How is disk space an 'inherently power-of-two quantity'? Because it's accessed by a computer, which uses binary address space representation? Hmm. Perhaps.
It's still a misuse of the established SI units, which are there fundamentally to provide *precision*. The *binary- units are standard, agreed upon, and understood. It's time to start using them.
You're right, it IS a misuse of the established SI units. It was devised from scientific convenience rather than precision. However, renaming kilo to kibi, mega to mebi, is also derived out of convenience (using identical consonant/vowel combos on the first half of the word) and cause FAR more confusion that if they had simply renamed the entire system with no connection to the later.
Now we have 2 systems that are being used incorrectly and interchangeably (due to lack of knowledge). The first problem was simply of nomenclature, the second is the real confusion.
As I see it, no one will ever use the work mebibyte. Not only is it difficult rolling off the tounge, it just sounds stupid.
IMO, the only way to completely solve this problem is for operating systems to display by default all file sizes in the decimal system. As was mention earlier, it could be a preference that could be changed to display MiB, etc or both systems simultaneously.
The truth of the mater is that people can easily adjust to a slight adjustment in calculation (most probably wouldn't even notice), but they will never change their wording.
RAM *is*, and will continue to need to be, measured in powers of two simply due to addressing needs of the computer. (Amorya, this is much more an inherent power of two than the drive, if you want a good example.) So you're still going to have the issue of 32'MB' suddenly becoming 33.55MB. While this might cause a slight initial wave of "Whoohoo!" at the larger number, would you rather deal with 1GiB of RAM, or 1.074GB? (And really, it's 1.073741824GB...) The latter number is the correct one, the former has the correct units. I think most people would find it easier to change the unit than try and work in the new numbering.
And that doesn't even get into the developer issues, where the difference is notable, necessary, and even more in need of being precise.
I think the prefixes make perfect sense, and really... is gibi- really any more stupid sounding than giga-? You're just used to the latter, is all. The binary prefixes have the advantage of looking like the SI units, so converting mentally is simple, but the -bi- hammers home that it's a binary base. I think this makes more sense than coming up with some arbitrary new naming scheme with no relation to the familiar one.
You're right, however, that it'll probably never catch on. We can't even seem to move to SI as a culture, and that's so brain-dead obvious that if we can't do that... well...
We can't even seem to move to SI as a culture, and that's so brain-dead obvious that if we can't do that... well...
With all the things the USA is criticized for internationally these days, I can't believe that people overlook the lack of the metric system. The USA holding out causes unnecessary problems for everyone (including Americans).
Is there any chance that a worldwide movement of change for GiB etc could break the dam and bring on the metric system in the US (and even better, replace 8.5x11 etc paper sizes with A4 and A series sizes).
This is it! Our chance to change the world for the better.
Words like Gibibyte sound stupid.
As I see it, no one will ever use the work mebibyte. Not only is it difficult rolling off the tounge, it just sounds stupid.
Gibibyte is a stupid word
So "gibbibit", "mega-bite", "tear-a-bite", and "nibble" don't sound stupid?
C'mon. All of the computer units sound silly; you're just used to them.
On the latter subject, non-techy people do know what a Gigabyte is.
No they don't. Try asking them sometime.