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Re: Mb means Megabyte (was RE: Licence or license?)

Subject: Re: Mb means Megabyte (was RE: Licence or license?)
From: Jan Henning <henning -at- r-l -dot- de>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 12:44:20 +0100

'Fraid I just can't let this one pass. This is what it says in the concise
OED:

Other reference works give other information. For example, the Microsoft Manual of Style gives "MB" as the only correct abbreviation for megabyte. It gives "Mb" as a possible abbreviation for megabit but forbids its use.

I've been into computers since I got a ZX81 at the age of 11 (22 years
ago now)

The times they are a-changing... ;-)

and I've _never_ interpreted Kb as Kilobit --- it _always_
means Kilobyte, and is generally pronounced as just "K". Similarly
Mb means megabytes, and is generally pronounced "Meg".

Seeing as there is at least some confusion as to what "Kb" and "Mb" mean - and I for one have always tended to interpret them as kilobit and megabit -, it seems prudent not to use them for kilobyte and megabyte when there is no danger of such confusion with "KB" and "MB".

I've also never once in my life before today seen "mebibyte".
Sounds a bit made up to me.

This is a standard adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission (www.iec.ch) in 1999. It is intended to end the confusion around how many bytes a gigabyte really is. Whether it will succeed remains to be seen. A good explanation of the issue can be found in the Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte).

Regards
Jan Henning

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References:
Mb means Megabyte (was RE: Licence or license?): From: Chris Gooch

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