Mike, Bill Potts has given you some good information on this. I would like to elaborate a bit.
Linux command options that specify 'SI' cause output of information that use the SI prefixes properly. That is, kilo means exactly 1000, mega means exactly 1 000 000, and so forth. I normally use linux at home and office so I am quite familiar with this. The earliest linux 'doc' file I found with the other prefixes (for binary multiples) properly symbolized was dated 1998. The prefixes for binary multiples are also specified in IEEE Std 1541, available from IEEE for a small fee. You might also wish to look at my web page http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj/binprefixes.html for some related information. I was the Chair of the Working Group that developed IEEE Std 1541 and got it approved so one might surmise that my web page has it right. That standard does refer to the IEC document that they put forth and that the NIST site (cited by Bill) draws from. The IEEE and IEC standards are nearly identical, though we differ on the specified symbol for the bit. See my web page on this. Jim On Sunday 14 May 2006 11:13, Mike Millet wrote: > Recently I was downloading a Linux distribution off Bittorrent and > happened to notice that in the software I use for it there was an > option to use SI units meaning KiB for Kilobyte and MiB for Megabyte > instead of KB and MB. What I don't get is why it's not acceptable to > use the KB or MB. Wikipedia seems to indicate from this link > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte that either one is acceptable > > . > Just as a side note the file I'm downloading happens to be 4.7GiB :). > It's going to take a while so I'll have plenty of time to stare at > the number and ponder it. > > Mike -- James R. Frysinger Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist Senior Member, IEEE http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Office: Physics Lab Manager, Lecturer Dept. of Physics and Astronomy University/College of Charleston 66 George Street Charleston, SC 29424 843.953.7644 (phone) 843.953.4824 (FAX) Home: 10 Captiva Row Charleston, SC 29407 843.225.0805
