Re: Abbr. for kilobyte?

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

Keith Ivey asks:

|} Does anyone know of any definitive rulings on whether "kilobyte" should
|} be abbreviated as "KB", "Kb", "kB", or "kb"?  I think I have seen all
|} four.  Some people say that "B" should be used for "byte" and "b" for
|} "bit".  The SI system, of course, uses "k" for 1,000, so there is an
|} argument that "K" should be used for 1,024--but this leaves open the
|} question of how to distinguish between "M" meaning 1,000,000 and "M"
|} meaning 1,048,576.

First, a personal observation. T.I. documents used to use KB for kilobytes,
and Kb for kilobits, but found that most of the customers did not immediately
notice the difference. We now use KB as an abreviation for kilobytes, but
always spell out K bits. Less confusion.

Now for the attributions.

JEDEC Standard No. 100, Terms, Definitions, and Letter Symbols for
Microcomputers and Memory Integrated Circuits.

K, upper case, a multiplier equal to 1024.....

        Note that JEDEC 100 does not similarly address M or G.

and from the Jargon File:

 JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.12, 10 MAY 1993

   There are, of course, some standard unit prefixes for powers of
   10.  In the following table, the `prefix' column is the
   international standard suffix for the appropriate power of ten; the
   `binary' column lists jargon abbreviations and words for the
   corresponding power of 2.  The B-suffixed forms are commonly used
   for byte quantities; the words `meg' and `gig' are nouns that may
   (but do not always) pluralize with `s'.

     prefix   decimal   binary       pronunciation
     kilo-       k      K, KB,       /kay/
     mega-       M      M, MB, meg   /meg/
     giga-       G      G, GB, gig   /gig/,/jig/

   Note that the formal SI metric prefix for 1000 is `k'; some use
   this strictly, reserving `K' for multiplication by 1024 (KB is
   `kilobytes').

   K, M, and G used alone refer to quantities of bytes; thus, 64G is
   64 gigabytes and `a K' is a kilobyte (compare mainstream use of
   `a G' as short for `a grand', that is, $1000).  Whether one
   pronounces `gig' with hard or soft `g' depends on what one thinks
   the proper pronunciation of `giga-' is.

I believe that these usages comply with the 19th Conference Generale des
Poids et Mesures as well, but I do not have a specific reference. Anyone?
    _______________   _____
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
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