On Sunday, Apr 25, 2004, at 06:07 US/Pacific, Gerhard Fiedler wrote:

>>>> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
>
>>> Heh.  What a good idea.  Too bad it was, oh, 10 years too late
>
>> Of course not!! I just wonder why it is so rarely used.

Because the binary multipliers are used in very limited circumstances,
and where the actual number doesn't really matter, and you don't have
any choice.  I mean, suppose a computer has 512MiByte of memory.  Does
the consumer care that it's more than 512Mbyte?  Can he pay less by
buying a computer with only 512Mbyte?  Are there applications that
would work in 512Mibyte but not 512byte?  For most consumers, it might
was well be a meaningless number, other than "bigger is better."
Are binary multipliers used ANYWHERE other than memory size these days?
Are they ever likely to be used for anything else?

BillW

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