callum tubb
Active member
Hi, im currently downloading a game and have noticed that my download speed is saying 6 mb/s, but on task manager it says I'm running at 50 MBps. What does this mean?
Download speed
- Thread starter callum tubb
- Start date
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Yes, but it's important to get the symbols you're using right. Megabytes per second is MB/s whilst megabits per second is Mb/s. That capital B is important. [emoji846]
stegor
Bright Spark
Agreed if everyone bothered to use them properly but most don't, including experts. Better to explicitly state which you are using, bytes or bits.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
We'll have to agree to disagree I'm afraid. In this industry accuracy is essential and IMO using the proper symbols is important. I take your point though. [emoji846]
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Have to say, if a pro doesn't correctly state MB or Mb, they're not a pro and shouldn't be taken seriously, it should ALWAYS be stated accurately amongst professionals.
So, exactly what I said... except I used B and b correctly ;-)
Stephen M
Author Level
There is also dishonest advertising. On a slightly different subject but not that far off. We now have to check whether a 1TB drive is a Terabyte or Tebibyte and the difference is great. Computer professionals would used say a Terabyte is 1099512000000 bytes, whereas using a strictly decimal system it is 1000000000000 bytes.
It did not take long for advertising people to work out HDDs could be made to look a lot larger by using a purely decimal system, although I prefer using terms like Tebi, Gibi, Mibi etc as it does show the binary concept is being considered and using a decimal prefix for a binary number is not logical. That said, when Tera, Giga, Mega etc were first used it was only by mathematicians, scientists and the like so was not an issue.
It did not take long for advertising people to work out HDDs could be made to look a lot larger by using a purely decimal system, although I prefer using terms like Tebi, Gibi, Mibi etc as it does show the binary concept is being considered and using a decimal prefix for a binary number is not logical. That said, when Tera, Giga, Mega etc were first used it was only by mathematicians, scientists and the like so was not an issue.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
I appreciate that those who are new to computing find the use of the Mega, Giga and Tera multipliers unfriendly. The problem with trying to replace them with true decimal equivalents is that the binary numbering system is at the heart of everything we do. If for example, one who has only learned Mibi, Tebi, etc. starts to delve deeper and attempt some debugging or assembler programming, even in some cases high level language programming, they will inevitably run into the binary multipliers which they won't then understand.
IMO as long as computing is binary based it's necessary to become at least familiar with the binary multipliers. They are not some mathematician's fancy but are accurate representations of the binary values in use.
I agree. I appreciate it leads to some dishonesty around things like disk capacity as Stephen said, but let's face it, when you start going down the route of speed then ISP's have been lying out of their teeth with much more egregious claims with their "up to" speeds for years.
Binary isn't that difficult to wrap your head around once you've played with it for a while and way back in the day I had to hand code using hex...now that could lead to some mental mathematical gymnastics.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Same here. I wrote a lot of code in the early days for the Zilog Z80 (the Intel 8080 clone) and knew its assembler language so well I found it faster to write the hex codes and avoid having to run the assembler. Hex maths does require an agile mind however, I doubt I'm up to that now....🦖
I had to code on an evaluation kit - basically a hexadecimal keypad with a few added buttons like enter and 4 seven segment displays. I think that was a 6800 CPU
Then there was a 6502 equivalent.
We got our hands on a Z80 and 8086 towards the end of the course.
I had to write a piece of code to read bar codes on the 6800 and then replicate them on a plotter. I also had to build the plotter.
I remember the lookup table took more RAM than the 16KB on the board so I also had to build a massive 32KB RAM expansion kit and the software to drive it. Originally it was going to be an extra 16KB but...the code to drive the damn thing took about 17.5KB in its own right.
From a learning perspective it was brilliant. From a practical point of view... it read a bar code and printed the same thing on a piece of paper on a plotter, including the numbers...which was frankly pretty pointless seeing as you had the blooming bar code to begin with!