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A representative word meaning one thousand bytes, or approximately anyway. The correct amount is 1,024 bytes. See GB. In decimal systems, kilo stands for 1,000, but in binary systems, a kilo is 1,024 (2 to the 10th power). (In law enforcement, a kilo is a big bust! In Las Vegas, a big bust is … never mind…) Technically, therefore, a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, but it is often used loosely as a synonym for 1,000 bytes. For example, a computer that has 256K main memory can store approximately 256,000 bytes (or characters) in memory at one time. A megabyte is 2 to the 20th power (approximately 1 million) and a gigabyte is 2 to the 30th power (approximately 1 billion). Don't know your KB from your MB? Try our memory and storage converter. (Also see powers of ten, megabyte, terabyte, exabyte, petabyte, zettabyte and yottabyte.) In computer literature, kilobyte is usually abbreviated as K or Kb. To distinguish between a decimal K (1,000) and a binary K (1,024), the IEEE has suggested following the convention of using a small k for a decimal kilo and a capital K for a binary kilo, but this convention is by no means strictly followed.

kb_or_kilobyte.txt · Last modified: 2006/10/15 09:35 (external edit)