Post 2101654 by EdS@mastodon.sdf.org
 (DIR) More posts by EdS@mastodon.sdf.org
 (DIR) Post #2101581 by bhtooefr@cathoderay.tube
       2018-12-19T10:38:22.924935Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       I hate how the popular names for the IBM formats of 5.25" HD, 3.5" HD, and 3.5" ED floppies are "1.2 MB", "1.44 MB", and "2.88 MB".So, there's the endless debate over whether to use SI or IEC prefixes for power of 2 sizes in data storage - hard drive vendors have chosen to use the SI prefixes with power of 10 sizes for ages (because it makes their products look bigger), mainstream commercial OSes continue to use SI prefixes with power of 2 sizes, and FOSS software sometimes uses IEC prefixes with power of 2 sizes.But a floppy megabyte is something else entirely - their common names use both power of 2 *AND* power of 10 in their ultimate size.A "1.44 MB" floppy is 1440 kiB, or 1,474,560 B. Less than 1.44 MiB (1,509,949.44 B), more than 1.44 MB (1,440,000 B).Technically, that means that the only way "1.44" is correct is if the unit is the kilokibibyte, and prefixes don't usually work like that.#retrocomputing #floppies #DataStorage #computing
       
 (DIR) Post #2101654 by EdS@mastodon.sdf.org
       2018-12-19T10:45:55Z
       
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       Yep, ten to the n times two to the ten - easy to remember! The kilokibibyte forever.@bhtooefr
       
 (DIR) Post #2105175 by seatsafetyswitch@cronk.stenoweb.net
       2018-12-19T14:38:51Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @bhtooefr It was also irritating to me as a kid that "double density" was smaller than "high density." High is unquantifiable!