On: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calc...

[jclulow]

So "megabytes" appears to be the power-of-ten unit, which is generally not that helpful in practice.

   ≫ 6 megabytes to bytes
     6 MB -> B
      = 6000000 B

Assuming you're sticking with the power-of-ten unit, that means you should really grow support for the (sigh) "mebibytes" family of units; i.e., what some folks are retro-actively calling the power-of-two byte unit.

   ≫ 6 mebibytes to bytes
     6 × mebibytes -> B
     Unknown identifier: mebibytes

[sharkdp → jclulow]

Thanks! It has already been requested: https://github.com/sharkdp/insect/issues/81

[bo1024 → jclulow]

I'd call them "MB (megabytes)" and "MMB" (marketing megabytes). Pretty clear.

[fnj → bo1024]

"M" - "Mega" is an official general purpose SI prefix approved in 1960 which always stood for a decimal multiplier. Its common usage as a binary multiplier was limited to counting units of computer memory, and is purely an approximation to allow convenient speaking of, e.g., a megabyte of RAM instead of 1.048576 megabytes of RAM. Because it reflects the natural scale of physical memory.

It is more properly referred to as "MeB" - "mebi", which became an ISO standard prefix in 2008.

[bo1024 → fnj]

Interesting!

But hmm..."Megameter" "Megaliter" "Megagram"

[Magnap → fnj]

Just a small correction: the abbreviated form of mebibyte is MiB.

[fnj → Magnap]

Thanks!

[l-p → bo1024]

There is already MiB (mebibytes) and MB (once actual megabytes, now what you call MMB).

[bo1024 → l-p]

Yes but that concedes the change in definition of MB, which I strongly dislike.