[mythtv-users] What to call things

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Sat Dec 8 01:54:56 UTC 2007


On 12/07/2007 08:30 PM, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> 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.  :-)
>   

I have to admit that I broke my Stretch Armstrong by stretching it too
far.  (The goo inside was cool, though.)

> 	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*.
>   

Sure.  Pick an 8-bit microarchitecture to prove that a byte is 8-bits.  ;)

(Cool, though, that ESR uses the "proper" spelling of the word
"nybble"--versus the "now accepted" nibble.)

> That's long enough for me, not you?
>
> :-)

In truth, the Dec 1998 IEC standard for binary prefixes is long enough
for me, but not--it seems--for others.

Mike



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