Talk:megabyte

In 28 years in computing a Megabyte was always 1,024 x 1,024 bytes. 2^20. And never heard of a mebi byte.--Richardb 13:22, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Signal to noise ratio is very low on this search. Anyone able to find this third meaning (210 * 103) actually used? --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I know all three have been used, but it's confusing when and how they're applied. If I don't have my facts straight it's because I've never cared for the ingenuity of the idiots who came up with this stuff. There was a time when everyone would have assumed a megabyte was 1024 kilobytes, and this may still apply to memory chips since it corrolates strongly with how they're addressed. I think it was on hard drives where 1000 KB rather than 1024 KB was called a "megabyte", making the hard drive appear larger than it really was in comparison to a competitor's, kind of like measuring the size of a TV by the diagonal or including the factor of digital zoom when advertising cameras. I'm guessing it didn't take long for someone to figure out that a million bytes is really only 977 KB, and eveyone followed suit after that. Except I wonder if maybe they couldn't for Macs because Apple had a bit more control over the situation. You might find something under their history. Davilla 11:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Until someone attests it rfvfailed. Andrew massyn 07:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

DEF: # (computing, very rare): 210&times;103 (1,024,000) bytes.
 * 1) (computing) A mebibyte or 10242 (1,048,576) bytes.  SI symbol: MiB, computing symbol: MB.

RFV doesn't work if nobody actually cites things. Cynewulf 17:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

byte
1. One million (106) bytes. 2. (computing) 1,048,576 bytes What meanings of byte are used in each definition? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:22, 8 December 2019 (UTC)