Re: why bytes are Bs and not bs

Subject: Re: why bytes are Bs and not bs
From: Peter Brown <pbrown -at- MKS -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 10:49:49 -0400

Miss Julie A Landry wrote:
> If they are true abbreviations, why don't you end them with periods?
> Okay, okay, I get the gist of the question. If a centimeter is cm, why
> isn't megabyte always mb? I dunno, but most places I've worked preferred
> MB. (It was listed that way in the IBM dictionary of computer terms, too.)

It's called the metric system, which is the standard used in the
scientific community, and therefore the computer scientific community.
'm' means 'milli', and 'M' means 'mega'.

--
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Opinions? I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention."
Peter Brown, Technical Writer (pbrown -at- mks -dot- com)
Mortice Kern Systems Inc. (http://www.mks.com)

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