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Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes (zeta.one)

submitted 10 months ago by wischi@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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I often find myself explaining the same things in real life and online, so I recently started writing technical blog posts.

This one is about why it was a mistake to call 1024 bytes a kilobyte. It's about a 20min read so thank you very much in advance if you find the time to read it.

Feedback is very much welcome. Thank you.

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[-] insomniac_lemon@kbin.social 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Just to add, I would argue that by definition of prefixes it is 1000.

However there are other terms to use, in this case Kibibyte (kilo binary byte, KiB instead of just KB) that way you are being clear on what you actually mean (particularly a big difference with modern storage/file sizes)

EDIT: Of course the link in the post goes over this, I admit my brain initially glossed over that and I thought it was a question thread

this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023

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