Skip to main content
Computer Science Educators

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

21
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Kilobyte was coined far before the 1,000 byte kilobyte in 1998. IEC really just made a mess of things. $\endgroup$
    – phyrfox
    Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 19:09
  • 51
    $\begingroup$ Yes, but kilo = 1000 goes back to 1795: etymonline.com/word/kilo- So non-geeks have some precedence here, perhaps. But more important: If you teach them just the one thing as the "correct thing" you are setting them up for confusion later. The world is messy. Teachers shouldn't pretend it isn't. Being dogmatic isn't very helpful. $\endgroup$
    – Buffy
    Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 19:12
  • 6
    $\begingroup$ Also kB/KB doesn't help with MB, GB, TB which a) are much more relevant b) have much bigger differences. $\endgroup$
    – Maja Piechotka
    Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 2:20
  • 30
    $\begingroup$ "Sadly, the dual meanings is likely due to manufacturers trying to avoid confusion in the minds of unsophisticated customers" More likely it is advertisers wanting their product to sound larger than it really is. Why advertise a 3TB hard drive using the correct 1TB=1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes when you can advertise a 3.3TB hard drive using the lawyer approved 1TB=1000*1000*1000*1000 bytes. 3.3 is bigger than 3, right? $\endgroup$
    – Readin
    Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 5:10
  • 28
    $\begingroup$ @Readin Or, as I see it more often, a 3TB drive that actually has 2.7TB of total storage. $\endgroup$
    – anon
    Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 5:43