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

submitted 8 months ago by wischi@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

190 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] Humanius@lemmy.world 22 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (9 children)

Short answer: It's because of binary.
Computers are very good at calculating with powers of two, and because of that a lot of computer concepts use powers of two to make calculations easier.

1024 = 2^10^

Edit: Oops.. It's 2^10^, not 2^7^
Sorry y'all.. 😅

[–] irdc@derp.foo 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

1024 = 2^10^

FYFY

[–] Motorheadbanger@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

~~FYFY~~ FTFY FTFY

[–] irdc@derp.foo 5 points 8 months ago

Yeah, I deserve that. I’m just gonna leave my typo. Thanks for the laugh!

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