RE: Meg vs. MB vs. M

["Bill Swallow" <wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com>]

::: I've recently butted heads with the marketing person at my 
::: very small
::: company over the use of the term "meg." On our product 
::: list, she uses the
::: term meg, as in "blah-blah board with 1 Meg Memory." I 
::: checked with the
::: software engineers and they said meg always means megabyte. 
::: But then the
::: hardware engineers said no, when she says 1 Meg Memory, she means 1
::: million 32-bit words (equal to four megabytes); however, in digital
::: cameras, it's really 1,024,000 32-bit words. I said OK like 
::: I understood
::: what they were talking about . . .

...and then thought about what they were talking about, read up on it, and
now DO understand what they were talking about, right?

::: In documentation,
::: I'm thinking of going with 1M x 36-bit words, or spelling 
::: everything out,
::: but our product list has severe space limitations. Anyone 
::: else run into
::: this particular abbreviation hell? And before anyone states 
::: the obvious,
::: we can't just say 4 MB, because it makes a difference 
::: somehow that it's
::: broken down.

Well, your question contains your answer as well as your problem. In what
context are you writing about Megs/MBs/Ms? If you don't know, then you need
to find out before we can answer. If you DO know, then go with the best
answer you got from the people you've already asked. If you're still
uncertain, remember who your audience is and go with what THEY will
recognize and understand.

Bill Swallow
wswallow "at" nycap "dot" rr "dot" com