1,024???

[Government007]

How come computer storage, such as memory has a different number than you would think? Ex: a kilobyte stands for 1000 bytes, so why is it 1024 bytes instead of 1000?

[Sterling_Aug]

Why does sunshine hurt my eyes? Why is the sky blue? Why do birds sing? LOL

Check how the Base 2 numbering system works and you will answer your own question.

[This message has been edited by Sterling_Aug (edited 09-01-2000).]

[PassnThru]

Stop thinking decimal - start thinking binary. Don't ask for the math - too long since school where I had to add/subtract in binary. Not fun. Then there was Octal...

[OuTpaTienT]

LOL. Wouldn't 1 to the power of 10 be 1?

[Sterling_Aug]

Try 2 raised to 10th power.

[alpha]

I think it's like 1 to the power of 10 or something like that.

[alpha]

Oh yeah - Ok, it's *insert correct number hear* to the power of ten, ok?

[DHatAVI]

The reason that 1024 is called 1000 or 1K is because we use the base 10 numbering system where as computers use base 2 numbering system, at 8 bits at a time (byte). A byte can create 256 different numbers, 2 bytes-1024 different numbers and so on. Since it is somewhat awkward to go around using the number 1024 it gets rounded of to 1000. When you refer to 64K of ram for example, instead of 64 * 1000, in real life, it's 64 * 1024. But who wants to go around saying I've got 65536 bytes of ram. Instead we refer to it as 64 K, knowing that it is a multiple of 1024 (2^10).

David


[This message has been edited by DHatAVI (edited 09-03-2000).]

[narayan]

10000000000 in base 2 (binary) = 1024 in base 10, or the decimal system. in binary, each place equals a multiple of 2. In decimal, each place equals a multiple of 10.

So in binary,
the first place =1
the second =2
the third =4
the fourth =8
the fifth =16
and so on and on and on...

In base 10, as you know those places are:
first =1
second =10
third =100
etc.....
make sense? http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[voogru]

1K 100k 1000k 10000k 100000k 1000000k 10000000k 100000000k who cares! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
as long as you have enough space to put Half-lIfe your ok http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[brandon184]

Why think about little things like that when you don't need to?

two 512MB SDRAM sticks equal 1024MB SDRAM.

- Brandon