Re: [MiNT] 2 GB == 2 GB

["Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz" <draco@obta.uw.edu.pl>]

> > Many people ignore the fact, that "mega = 1 000 000" is an
> > international standard. 1 megabyte is exact 1 000 000 bytes,
> > nothing else.
> 
> Except that kilo is not necessarily 1000.  In fact, being scaled 
> on base 2, it is equal to 1024 in computer parlance.  The
> same goes for calculating one mega.

Well, in explicit terms, "kilo" = 1000 and nothing else, since "chilioi"
(where europeized word "kilo" is derived from) meanss "a thousand" in
Greek.

However, in computer business, a "kilo" has always been 1024. Hence
measuring harddisks in "megabytes" which are 1.000.000 bytes each, is not
very fair on the side of the media storage vendors, eventhough this is
correct from another point of view.

A good example of such stuff is the old disk drive ATari 1050. It was
advertised as being capable of doing "double" density as opposite to the
older model Atari 810, which did "single" density. From the users point of
view, this implied that Atari 1050 is capable of formatting disks to 180k,
because this was "double" (i.e. 2x single = 2x 90k). However, Atari 1050
was in reality only capable of doing formatting to 130k. This would mean a
lie on the Atari side, but Atari 1050 really used "double" density (i.e.
MFM encoding) in terms defined by the Western Digital Corp.

In other words, the vendor of the drive (Atari) said truth, knowing very
well, that this will be misinterpreted by potential users. There is no
reason to sue the vendor, however, such an advertisment is unfair.

Same with modern harddisks.

--
Konrad M.Kokoszkiewicz
mail: draco@atari.org
http://draco.atari.org

** Ea natura multitudinis est,
** aut servit humiliter, aut superbe dominatur (Liv. XXIV,25)
*************************************************************
** Taka to juz natura pospolstwa, ze albo sluzy ono unizenie,
** albo bezczelnie sie panoszy.