"Schuh, Richard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I am neither Greek nor a scholar, but your explanation is as described = >in any reference I have found. Now, what is the origin of the prefix = >"yotta"? How did "octo" get morphed to "yotta"? At least the derivation = >of "exa" from "hexa" is fairly easy to see.
Well, I'm 1/4 Greek (ask me at SHARE and I'll show you which quarter, if I like ya!), and I found this (at http://www.sizes.com/units/yotta.htm): >>> In SI, the decimal multiplier prefix indicating 1024 of the unit to which it is prefixed. Symbol, Y. The name comes from "octo," the Latin word for eight, because the prefix represents 103 to the eighth power. The "y" was added to avoid using the letter "o" as a symbol, because it might be confused with the numeral for zero. <<< That makes more sense when you realize they mean as in YB (like KB, MB, GB), rather than that someone would confuse octobyte with 0ctobyte (0ct0byte?). Not sure I buy this -- could be a folk etymology. But it's as plausible as any, I guess. ...phsiii (who thinks the real origin is, "That's a whole yotta bytes!")
