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[return to "1 kilobyte is precisely 1000 bytes?"]
1. cornon+2J1[view] [source] 2026-02-04 01:30:29
>>surpri+(OP)
The meaning of kilo, mega, giga, tera, etc. are unambiguous: SI prefixes defined as powers of 10, not 2. 1 TB is 10*12 bytes, not 2*40 bytes.

The misuse of those prefixes as powers of 1024, while useful as shorthand for computer memory where binary addressing means, is still exactly that: a misuse of SI prefixes.

There's now a separate set of base-2 prefixes to solve this, and people need to update their language accordingly.

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2. NetMag+EH3[view] [source] 2026-02-04 16:23:06
>>cornon+2J1
The use of kilo for 1024 in computers precedes the formalization of kilo as an SI prefix. SI should have used a different prefix instead /s
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3. yencab+oG5[view] [source] 2026-02-05 03:39:22
>>NetMag+EH3
Kilo (chili-/chilo-/*kʰehliyoi) is an Ancient Greek/Proto-Hellenic word literally translated as "one thousand". The word can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European, which means it's as old as any language we're aware of, though Proto-Hellenic is when the meaning was fixed to 1000.
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