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lynx-dev Re: when, where, why "kb/sec"?


From: Christian Weisgerber
Subject: lynx-dev Re: when, where, why "kb/sec"?
Date: 13 Sep 1998 01:06:03 +0200

In article <address@hidden>,
Philip Webb <address@hidden> wrote:

> >> The abbreviation for the SI prefix "kilo" (1000) is 'k'. Lower case. 
> > there's 'k' (1000) and 'K' (1024).  we're using 1024.
>  
> that's a new distinction for me.

Some people make it, but it isn't widely recognized, and it doesn't make
sense since you can't continue it for M (mega), G (giga), etc.

The use of 'K' is an artifact of American usage. Americans seem to be
unable to recognize that international unit abbreviations are case
sensitive. Those PF (petafarad) capacitors are particularly interesting.
Hey, what's a factor of 10^27 among friends?

> my understanding has been that today `k' & `K' are both allowed,
> tho' `K' is more consistent with SI's `M G T P E';

This is incorrect. SI specifies lower case 'k' as the abbreviation for
the prefix "kilo".

Of course, stricly speaking, SI prefixes are only to be applied to SI
units and are always base 10.

> in German, `Kilometer' will have a capital, being a noun.

Yes, but this is totally irrelevant for the abbreviation of the unit
which is "km".

Regarding the use of these prefixes with bits and bytes, it should be
pointed out that byte quantities are usually considered to relate to
computer memory and thus use the base 2 prefixes (k=1024, M=1048576,
etc), whereas bit/s transmission speeds in telecommunications use base
10 prefixes (k=1000, M=1000000, etc).

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                  address@hidden
    carpe librum: books 'n' reviews <URL:http://www.carpe.com/buch/>

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