Re: Byte abbreviations

[Bill Newell <bnewell -at- THEWEBCORP -dot- COM>]

IMHO, from a scientific standard, Mega  is abbreviated M, milli is
abbreviated m, whether you are discussing liters, volts, or bytes, et al.

----------
> From: Matt Ion <soundy -at- NEXTLEVEL -dot- COM>
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Re: Byte abbreviations
> Date: Monday, June 09, 1997 9:53 PM
>
> On Mon, 9 Jun 1997 12:31:17 -0500, geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA wrote:
>
> > Rikki Mitman wondered <<I'm looking for consensus on the
> > abbreviation of things like megabyte and gigabyte, which
> > are typically represented as mb and gb (or, to my
> > dismay, MB, Mb GB, and Gb). To me, these are abbreviations,
> > *not* acronyms, and should not be capped.>>
> >
> [snip]
>
> > So cap-M, cap-G, and lower-case k are correct and standard.
>
> Hmm... mb = millibit? :-)
>
> > Strictly speaking, your examples are the type of abbreviation known
> > as an initialism (i.e., an unpronouncable acronym), but
> > that's a red herring here. In any event, abbreviations are
> > often capped (e.g., MS-DOS, in which MS = Microsoft),
> > though the practice varies from industry to industry and
> > (sometimes) publication to publication.
>
> Some tend to make unpronounceable acronyms a tad more pronounceable:
> MS-DOS = "Messy-DOS", or one of my favorites, MPTS (Warp
> Connect/Server's Multi-Protocol Transport Services) = "Muppets".
>
> > As for bits and bytes, there's an unofficial standard in
> > the computer press that the big (cap) B stands for byte (8
> > bits), whereas the small (lower-case) b stands for bit
> > (just one). This is not to my knowledge an international
> > standard, nor is it used consistently in all cases, but
> > it's a sensible solution that is worth using IMHO.
>
> It might be considered an ad-hoc standard; the difference is generally
> understood and adhered to within the industry, and is generally only
> strayed from by the computer-illiterate and perpetualted by the
> comp-ill ;) press.
>
> I suppose for safety's sake, it's something that should be included in
> every computer-product manual's glossary (and let's not get into the
> argument that if you don't know the difference, you don't belong in the
> biz :-)
>
>
>
>
>
>  Your friend and mine,
>  Matt
>  <insert standard disclaimer here>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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