[ILUG] Shameless plug

[Niall O Broin]

On 1 May 2008, at 08:33, James McBoyle wrote:

> Just to get on a soap-box for a bit... One argument I've had with disk
> drive manufacturers is how they are trying to co-op gigabyte's meaning
> to gibibyte. one gigabyte is 1024 megabytes is 1024*1024 kilobytes is
> 1024*1024*1024 bytes is ... Trying to pretend that the 'real' meaning
> of gigabyte is a decimal, when the rest of the computing world has
> standardised on the base-two meaning is pure HD makers' marketing
> speak.

Sorry, wrong. You're right that the computing world has used the base- 
two meaning for a long time but being wrong for a long time doesn't  
make you right. The definitions of kilo, mega, giga etc. as quantity  
indicating prefixes are the subject of an international standard  
which has already been referred to in this discussion. Now  
international standards are perhaps not as shiny as they once were  
thanks to the despicable actions of a certain convicted monopolist,  
but that's another story.

Disk drive manufacturers have right on their side here and if  
insufficiently educated customers get upset, that's tough (as I  
mentioned, the vast majority of endusers of disk drives don't even  
know what we're talking about. The majority of the minority probably  
feel as you do but they're as wrong as you are, and repeatedly saying  
"We've always meant it that way" doesn't make it so.)

Note that I don't do very much enduser support, and there are good  
reasons for that :-)


Niall