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Subject:Abbr. for kilobyte? From:BurkBrick -at- AOL -dot- COM Date:Sun, 3 Jul 1994 01:12:18 EDT
>Does anyone know of any definitive rulings on whether "kilobyte"
>should be abbreviated as "KB", "Kb", "kB", or "kb"?
>If you follow up, please cite your sources. (Yes, I
>realize I didn't, but that's because I can't remember them.
>These are just vague rememberings.)
Oh, sure, make us do the grunt work. <g>
Looks like I need to update my resources; most of mine didn't list it.
However, the Random House College Dictionary listed the following: K =
Kelvin, potassium, and a variety of other unrelated things; k = karat, kilo;
kb = kilobars; kilobyte = 1024 bytes; abbreviated to K, as in 64K.
This use does seem to be prevalent, and I'm personally comfortable with it,
but I think I'd have to see it in context and know if there would be other
chances for confusion to creep in (such as use of Kelvin or kilobar units).
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms (Third Edition) -
doesn t list kilobyte; kb is kilobar and k = 1000.
