The Great Capacity Swindle

[Zac67]

The only reason to use binary kilos, megas ,... vs decimal ones is that it does make sense in some areas: chips (RAM, ROM) are rectangular in shape and their column and row sizes are powers of 2, so total size (=area) is also a power of 2 - using 1024 based prefixes makes sense since a chip is exactly e.g. 16 M(i)b in size.

In other contexts those odd prefixes make no sense at all (telecommunications, mass storage) as all sizes/speeds are arbitrary and have no 'natural' boundaries. Here you should definitely use decimal SI prefixes. All those arguing against this should think a moment about what makes more sense to use as standard - a 'traditional' feeling shouldn't be the only reason.

Just my .02.

[Zac67]

koaftder wrote:
Everybody, except for hard drive manufacturers, use base 2 to indicate capacity.

No - everybody, except for memory manufacturers, uses base 10 to indicate capacity.

[Zac67]

Well, it's digital, but its addressing is nothing on any binary basis. Rather, the size of a mass storage device depends solely on manufacturing, engineering and marketing decisions, thus entirely arbitrary.

Actually, I was of the binary fraction some years ago, but as soon as you work with stuff not entirely computer related, you start thinking about the traditional 1024 units - and find there's very little reason for them.

[Zac67]

:lol: - granted.

I've come to somewhat dislike the binary units (or rather the grey zone between the binary and the decimal kilos) and have decided to stick with the SI compatible 1000 where more logical - obviously it's still your own choice today, but imho you shouldn't object to people using the slightly more modern version when it seems fit (and makes your products look larger).

[Zac67]

bloodline wrote:

Du glaubst mir, ich bin sehr neidisch... For some odd reason I keep forgetting in inflect masculine nouns in the accusative case at the moment... it's very frustrating, as I notice the mistake as soon as I make it... And so do all my German friends :getmad:

I feel great respect for those taking on this illogical and (at times) cumbersome language - and you're doing quite well. Don't get frustrated, the best way to learn a language is by using it.  ;-)

[Zac67]

It'd not only be illogical but also uneconomical to build RAMs in non-power-of-2 sizes. Wikipedia: RAM/Operation Principle

[Zac67]

I understand you used no write precompensation at all? Then that's probably the cause. Local velocity of the medium increases constantly inward - on track 40 you have a ~35% higher speed, rising to nearly double speed on track 80. I'd guess even three different precomp zones would be necessary. Nice project though. ;-)