Why is a kilobyte 2^10 bytes, not 2^8 times 1000?

[transgalactic]

why kbyte=2^10 ??

a byte=2^8

kilo=1000

2^8 * 1000 differs 2^10

??

 

[rcgldr]

Someone decided that for binary based computer usage, it would be better to state everything values close to powers of 2. Since 2^10 is 1024, and close to 1000, it became "kilo". Similarly 2^20 is "mega", 2^30 is "giga", and 2^40 is "tera".

 

[transgalactic]

ok 1024 combinations is kbit
not

kbyte

 

[jtbell]

The International Electrotechnical Commission has tried to resolve this confusion by defining a new set of binary-based prefixes, e.g. 1 kibibyte = 1024 bytes.

See this Wikipedia article for more details.

Personally, I think "kibibyte" sounds like a brand of dog food.

 

[CRGreathouse]

The International Electrotechnical Commission has tried to resolve this confusion by defining a new set of binary-based prefixes

which have been almost universally ignored.