Re: Types of numerals; bases in natlangs.

Quoting Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>:

> On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 12:37:57 -0500, Thomas Hart Chappell
> <tomhchappell@...> wrote:
>
> > First let me digress to natlangs.
> > As for natlangs, there are several that have two bases, where the larger
> > base is some multiple -- not necessrily a power -- of the smaller.
> > "Computer-speak" uses K=2^10 and meg=K^2, often along with base-eight or
> > base-sixteen; K is not a power of either eight or sixteen, and although
> > meg
> > is the fifth power of sixteen, it is not a power of eight.
>
> It's worse even than that.
>
> Some systems use base 10^3 and others use base 2^10.
>
> There have been efforts to introduce -i and -o suffixes (thus Mi for 2^20,
> or Mo for 10^6, for example) to help cut through this confusion, but I've
> only encountered them sporadically, and frankly only in cases where the
> conversants ought to be familiar with which base was in play anyway.
> They're fighting 50 years of computer-geek groupthink, and frankly that's
> seldom a good idea.
There's also Mo = megaoctet. But I seem to see MiB, TiB, etc with some
frequency.

                                                         Andreas

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