Mon Mar 18 17:11:00 2002

Note: The total amount of recordable space available on a 4.7GB General Use DVD-R disc actually equates to 4.37GB of recordable data. This is due to the method in which Gigabyytes are calculated. In statistical terms, a Gigabyte is equal to one billion bytes.

Gigabyte - Common Use       Gigabyte - Computer Use
1,000,000,000 bytes            1,073,741,824 bytes

Ex-fucking-scuse me? I was unaware that there was a more general statistical use of the word Gigabyte. Put quite plainly, this is stupidity. It all started with hard drive manufacurers some time ago. SanDisk also made a big deal about it, basically saying somewhere on their site that they were right in using the even number, and that Windows Explorer (which was reporting their flash cards as smaller than the package said...) was wrong. But of course... :rolleyes:

I don't suppose there's a ton of valuable discussion that can come of this, but I felt like bitching. It's fucking retarded. Ah well.

Mon Mar 18 18:06:14 2002

There were sooo many people who called in to complain and as where the missing 3MB were.  :rolleyes:

Mon Mar 18 18:44:40 2002

That also shows the other reason this persists: Unless you worked for Quantum (I'm asumming you didn't) that means that resellers always got asked "Where's the shit I paid for?" While the manufacturers "miss out" on the bulk of the complaints. If enough clueless n00bs (or enough people who could imitate them ;) ) really complained in the beginning, I imagine that we could be using real figures by now. Shame.

Mon Mar 18 19:49:36 2002

We even put an explanation in our automated tech support phone system. ;)

Tue Mar 19 05:14:35 2002

Whaddya know. Its the business men again that screw up the world with their bs marketing.

Tue Mar 19 05:17:19 2002

Tue Mar 19 09:42:14 2002

If you mean 2^30, use 'gibi'.

Tue Mar 19 14:39:22 2002

If there were such things as base-10 computers it would make more sense to have a base 10 gigabyte and a base 2 gibibyte (That has to be the worst sounding prefix yet... "bibyte" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue...) but there are no such things (at least not outside of this or that highly highly funded lab)

Tue Mar 19 15:10:45 2002

from HitScan posted at 2:39 pm on Mar. 19, 2002

Is there some list of prefixes for computer units?

This page is as good as any:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

Is there a good reason for them to come about?

I know giga is 10^9 such as a gigameter (that would be a fun one to measure...) but anything ending in -byte has a very specific meaning.

It relates directly to computers, and they have very specific deliniations of measure.

There is no need to discuss a gigabyte having only 1 billion bytes. It isn't a gigabyte. It's 953.67MB.

Just because computers count in base 2 doesn't mean that standard prefixes should have their meanings changed.  I mean, who cares how they count?  If I'm using a 32-bit binary number to count how many metres my car has travelled, should I suddenly start saying that there's 1024 metres in a kilometre?  Of course not -- so why, when using a binary number to count the number of bytes in a file, should I suddenly start saying that there's 1024 bytes in a kilobyte?

If there were such things as base-10 computers it would make more sense to have a base 10 gigabyte and a base 2 gibibyte (That has to be the worst sounding prefix yet... "bibyte" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue...) but there are no such things (at least not outside of this or that highly highly funded lab)

Tue Mar 19 16:52:43 2002

Seeing as how this is likely how things are going to stay, I have a new complaint. Why can't these fucking media companies use proper units? Maybe they should say that I have a 4.37Gibibyte disc instead of 4.7Gigabyte. It's consistancy that I'm after. I want the numbers to match. (i.e. If Explorer says this disc has x.xxMB free, I don't want the package telling me that they're x.yy disks...)

Tue Mar 19 18:09:10 2002

from HitScan posted at 4:52 pm on Mar. 19, 2002

Well that's lovely. I had assumed it went down somewhat like the historical note said...

Seeing as how this is likely how things are going to stay, I have a new complaint. Why can't these fucking media companies use proper units? Maybe they should say that I have a 4.37Gibibyte disc instead of 4.7Gigabyte. It's consistancy that I'm after. I want the numbers to match. (i.e. If Explorer says this disc has x.xxMB free, I don't want the package telling me that they're x.yy disks...)

Tue Mar 19 19:17:47 2002

Wed Mar 20 11:58:32 2002