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|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 122 responses total. |
cross
|
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response 82 of 122:
| 
Dec 22 00:37 UTC 2006 |
Ah, I see what you mean now. I thought you meant K = 2^n while k = 10^n or
something. Yes, you are right.
|
ball
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response 83 of 122:
|
Dec 22 00:38 UTC 2006 |
Apparently the International Electrotechnical Commission
(whoever they are) want us to use "Ki" in place of K for
1,024. Computer people have been using K for 1,024 for a
very long time though.
|
ball
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response 84 of 122:
|
Dec 22 00:39 UTC 2006 |
Re #81: 1K = 1,024 1k = 1,000.
|
ball
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response 85 of 122:
|
Dec 22 00:39 UTC 2006 |
Erm, that was Re #82 ;-)
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cross
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response 86 of 122:
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Dec 22 00:41 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #84; You know, I've never heard that before. Like I said, do you
have a citation?
|
ball
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response 87 of 122:
|
Dec 22 00:43 UTC 2006 |
I'll have a rummage for one.
|
cross
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response 88 of 122:
|
Dec 22 00:44 UTC 2006 |
This is interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibibit
They seem to use ``Kib'' or ``Kibit'' (with a capital K) instead of ``Kbit''
or ``Kb.'' They do acknowledge that ``kilobit'' can be either 2^10 or 10^3
depending on context.
|
cross
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response 89 of 122:
|
Dec 22 00:48 UTC 2006 |
This is also interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
Note that they say that in the SI system, `K' (capitalized) stands for Kelvin,
as a unit of temperature, and `k' (lowercase) only stands for `kilo.' They
say that outside of SI, K and k are mostly interchangable, and can refer to
either 2^10 or 10^3, as I had originally said. To wit:
'The one-letter abbreviations are identical to SI prefixes, except for "K",
which is used interchangeably with "k" (in SI, "K" stands for the kelvin, and
only "k" stands for 1,000).'
However, they do say that as of 2005, the binary meanings are deprecated.
|
ball
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response 90 of 122:
|
Dec 22 00:53 UTC 2006 |
k (as a multiplier prefix) should only ever be used to mean
1,000. Everywhere I've ever worked or studies, K has been
capitalised to differentiate it from k. Telecomms people
talk in terms of kbits/sec, and mean 1,000 bits. Computer
people talk in Kbytes and mean 1,024. It's not rocket
science ;-)
|
ball
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response 91 of 122:
|
Dec 22 00:58 UTC 2006 |
Here's an example of K from a PDP-11 manual...
http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2005/pdp11/pdp11-40-000009.html
|
ball
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response 92 of 122:
|
Dec 22 01:12 UTC 2006 |
Here's a KIM-1 manual from 1976...
http://users.telenet.be/kim1-6502/6502/usrman.html
|
mcnally
|
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response 93 of 122:
|
Dec 22 01:12 UTC 2006 |
re #90: You're right that "it's not rocket science", but
it's not universally or consistently applied, either, which
means making assumptions based on the use of "k" or "K" is
dangerous if you need better than approximate numbers.
|
ball
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response 94 of 122:
|
Dec 22 01:16 UTC 2006 |
It's been consistently applied in my experience, but it's
true that a few people don't use it correctly.
|
ball
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response 95 of 122:
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Dec 22 01:21 UTC 2006 |
Take a random sample of computer manuals, text books (I hope
they're right!) or EPROM / SRAM data sheets. K = 1,024 is a
long-standing convention.
|
cross
|
|
response 96 of 122:
|
Dec 22 01:55 UTC 2006 |
Yes, but you were talking specifically about K = 1024 and k = 1000, and in
neither of the two references that you posted can I find such a distinction.
Everyone knows that most computer manuals refer to K as 2^10 = 1024. Your
claim was that they also refer to k as 1000, which is not universal, and in
fact, is a convention I've never heard of before, and is not supported by your
evidence.
If telecom people refer to kbits as 1000 bits, that's great, but what McNally
says is true: if you want to be exact, you've really got to specify.
|
ball
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response 97 of 122:
|
Dec 22 02:01 UTC 2006 |
k is 1,000 because of S.I. (km, kg, kW etc.) It's only
necessary to specify because some people seem underinformed.
|
cross
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response 98 of 122:
|
Dec 22 02:06 UTC 2006 |
*sigh* It's not being underinformed, Andy, it's recognizing that standards
aren't universally followed. I don't know how to explain it better than that.
Really, though, it's true: not everyone follows the same standards.
|
ball
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response 99 of 122:
|
Dec 22 05:20 UTC 2006 |
Never mind. Let's talk about wireless networking. My next
wireless networking task is to find a PCI 802.11g adaptor
that works with NetBSD. This could take a while.
|
keesan
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response 100 of 122:
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Dec 22 18:29 UTC 2006 |
How are you searching, in BSD online discussions?
|
ball
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response 101 of 122:
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Dec 22 18:58 UTC 2006 |
I'll probably start with the man pages for common device
drivers such as ath(4) and perhaps wi(4). Hopefully I'll be
able to find a card that has an appropriate chipset.
|
keesan
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response 102 of 122:
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Dec 22 19:20 UTC 2006 |
There are lists of linux-compatible pcmcia cards. Why don't you search on
BSD PCI wireless?
|
ball
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response 103 of 122:
|
Dec 22 23:06 UTC 2006 |
The man pages that I mentioned include lists of cards that
are supposed to work. Sadly some manufacturers will change
the chipset in a product without changing the model number
so it can be something of a lottery.
|
gull
|
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response 104 of 122:
|
Dec 23 03:25 UTC 2006 |
Re resp:75: My impression is that the computer world pretty universally
used K=1,024 until marketing types realized they could put a bigger
number on hard disk packages if they used K=1000. For a while they
tried to avoid confusion (and presumably false advertising claims) by
using the phrase "million bytes" instead of "megabytes."
|
ball
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response 105 of 122:
|
Dec 23 03:32 UTC 2006 |
I never saw them use K=1,000, but I did see them use
M=1,000,000 which makes sense in the context of S.I. They
could have excusably used k=1,000 but I never saw that
either.
|
ball
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response 106 of 122:
|
Jan 20 01:51 UTC 2007 |
I now have a D-Link DWL-G510 802.11g PCI wireless network
adaptor working under NetBSD-current.
|