[LINK] Is it Gb or GB?

[Stewart Fist]

As a well-established lexigraphic pendant from way back, let me re-enter the
Link space with my comments on giga and bytes.

A byte use to refer to a self-contained unit composed of bits of any length
- originally it was 5 (Telex ASCII), and then 7 (Teletext ASCII) and finally
they settled on 8.  There was also a 9 bit byte with the extra bit being
reserved for error checking in military circles.

So I guess 10-bit bytes are OK, provided these 10 bits comprise a standard
unit, and everyone knows what you are talking about.


At about the time that everyone settled on 8-bits to a byte, the term Word
became used for 16 bits (then later for 32 bits)

Bit should always be the small b, and Byte the big B -- but for some
peculiar reasons (known only to themselves) a couple of dictionary makers
got it the wrong way around, and this caused a lot of confusion in the early
days.  

So it should be `GB' for gigabyte and Gb for gigabit.

A related problem is that, in the international SI specs, we are supposed to
be using the small k for Kilo, because the larger one is for Kelvin

So a kilobyte should be kB, not KB

Except, of course, that kilo refers to 1000  -- not to 1024

Which created problems when memory was measured in binary, and data-rates in
decimal.  

This created such confusion that no one ever followed the rule except a few
pendants like me (and I then had to suffer my careful copy being changed
back to 'KB' by the newspaper sub-editors!) for a while  --- until I
discovered that the best rule was: "Who gives a damn!"


Stewart Fist