[mythtv-users] What to call things (was: seagate giving refunds out)

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, Dec 07, 2007 at 08:23:58PM -0500, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> Or, maybe we should just have them label storage capacity in bytes so
> it's unambiguous.  Oh, wait!  That won't work because byte has
> historically been used to refer to various amounts of data ranging from
> 5 to 12 bits.  So, if someone bought a 750,156,374,016 byte disk*, they
> may be disappointed to find out it has only 6,001,250,992,128 bits (per
> the 8-bit byte) rather than 7,501,563,740,160 bits (as it would using a
> 10-bit byte, a.k.a., a "deckle") but others may be delighted to find it
> has more than 3,750,781,870,080 bytes (as it would using a 5-bit byte,
> a.k.a. a "nickle").

Well, if you want to Stretch Armstrong a point, I guess, Mike.  :-)

	http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/byte.html

says that the 8-bit form was in *late 1956*, and that that sizing was
promulgated as a standard *by the IBM-360*.

That's long enough for me, not you?

:-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
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