User talk:Shmget

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Welcome!

Hello, Shmget, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! --Phill talk Edits 12:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] AS in the US

Hi, i just wanted to say thanks for your efforts on Adolescent sexuality in the United States. It was nice to have someone make an effort to improve it rather than just complain about what they didn't like. I did go through it to replace some information I think you accidentally deleted, as well as to correct some spelling and grammatical mistakes. Thanks again! --10:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Binary prefixes

Thank you for your comment on my talk page about binary prefixes. Fnagaton 21:51, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: binary prefix

No problem, I've done the same thing before. -- mattb 15:59, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, I'd like to kindly ask that you stop making changes in articles relating to binary prefix usage. This particular stylistic issue is under heavy consideration at the present, and all parties have agreed not to make any changes related to it until things are a little more settled. This is to prevent undue edit warring and reversions in the future. Thanks. -- mattb 23:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: revert on binary prefix

You're right, I did not notice that nuance. Apologies. -- mattb 00:46, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi -- I noticed you reverted the prefixes in the Apple III and Apple IIe article, back to the old and better known standard (i.e. Bit, Byte, Kilo, Mega, Giga). I welcome that, and in fact encourage you to do the same with the articles on the Apple IIGS, Apple IIc and Apple IIc Plus. I'm the original author of most of those articles (IIe, IIc, IIc Plus, and large sections of the Apple IIGS and main Apple II article) and discomforted by the changes to this new, relatively unknown prefix standard. I reverted it once before, but the same user keeps reverting it back. Perhaps if someone else, other than me reverts it, he'll leave it alone (just thinking he probably thinks I'm being biased as the creator of the articles) --Apple2gs 23:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comment on computer program

The Computer program article is in need of repair. Would you comment on any improvement suggestions? I joined the talk starting with the thread talk:computer program#Definition of a computer program. Timhowardriley 00:52, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I saw your response to Timhowardriley on his request for comment. As opposed to all the criticisms of this user that keep popping up, how about pointing him to some valid resources he can use to begin his research, Shmget? It probably would have taken you about 1/2 the time to type in a couple of book titles and/or Web addresses rather than your assessment of his knowledge of math. And honestly, if you don't have any constructive comments about the article you were asked about, you'd probably be better off just ignoring the RfC altogther for God's sake. SqlPac 20:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I got your message on my talk page User_talk:SqlPac, and I apologize. I misread your statement and thought you were talking about the poster himself. I believe young Tim is trying to learn Wikipedia and is interested in programming, even if he does not have a considerable amount of experience yet. If you can provide him with some information and resources where he can perform further research (I'm gathering some resources for him as well), I'm sure he would appreciate it. Thanks, and sorry again. SqlPac 00:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus ?

Sarenne know his edits are disruptive and against Wikipedia policy. It was explained to him here [1] and discussed here. [2]

He has been blocked for his edit wars more than once.[3] You may want to show this to an admin. -- SWTPC6800 00:24, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Ko/Kio

Sure, d'accord. Just give me the link to the area of discussion on French-language Wikipedia. My user page there is here. Cavenbaparlez à moi 21:29, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

In case you havn't seen it, Sarenne has been blocked indefinitely... and on fr: it says "Parti" on both the userpage and the usertalk page... I guess we won't have to deal with him again. Cavenbaparlez à moi 21:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:KiB

Could you link somewhere in there to what is meant by "IEC notation"? When I first ran across this (your Common.css proposal), it took me a while to figure out what you meant. Because of course the IEC specifies zillions of standards and notations, and "IEC notation" is so broad that without context or prior knowledge, it's really hard to figure out what you're talking about. (My first reaction: "Which IEC standard are they talking about?). Even reading the Binary Prefix page, I had trouble finding an IEC standard number; but at least linking there would add some clarity. Thanks. jhawkinson 12:15, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Done - Shmget 18:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Binary Prefix Reversion

You reverted my [Binary Prefix edit] without comment which is not very polite. I presume you do not like the term "incorrect" in context of binary sense of SI prefix. Is there another term u can stand, such as non-standard? The previous version of this page, which I edited, had removed "incorrect" on the basis that JEDEC approves such usage. Of course, JEDEC's domain is limited to memory not disk storage and all of the examples, except the last are disk storage. This distinction is particularly important with regard to the Macintosh display since that is an early and perhaps first example of a computer OS reporting disk storage using SI prefixes in a binary sense. Is there any phrase we can agree upon, I think it is important to note these usages are not IEC standard? Tom94022 19:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Response copied from [Tom94022 Talk Page]

I'm sorry If my revert looked rude to you, let me explain:
I did revert because the term 'incorrect', in this context, is POV and historically wrong. KB has NEVER been a SI unit in any way. K is NOT a S.I prefix (it is a S.I 'unit', but that is irrelevant, since T is both a S.I. unit and a S.I. prefix).
Historically and still to this day KB only mean 1024 byte. kB is used less consistently, altough extremely rarely in the 'decimal' sens. The best historical example of this is that the infamous 1.44 MB flobby where call like that because they were 1440 KB floppy i.e 1440 x 1024 bytes. Even the disk manufacturers acknowledged and respected the de facto standard of KB=1024.
Following the growth of the industry, unit like MB and GB were introduced by analogy. and I say unit because M and G here are not prefix, since B, as a unit means Bel not Byte. The whole, after-the-fact claim of hard-drive manufacturers didn't hold standard scrutiny. The claim that M and G here are S.I. prefix is being absolutist for the prefix but laxist with the unit. That is being inconsistent. This is nothing more that marketing tap-dance, because 100 MB looks better than 95 MB, and make the price per MB artificially cheaper.
Contrary to some claims made, these units were NOT used by hard drive manufacturers prior to the 80's. They usually did not use these unit at all, referring to big capacity in 'millions of characters' or 'millions of n-bits words' (especially since, 'byte' did not have an established meaning of octet until the development of IC chips in the late to early 70's), but the first use of the unit MB to mean 10^6 bytes date from the very end of the 70's (I've seen mention of a reference to a spec dating 1978 from a hard drive manufacturer), at a time where K and KB have already been in use for 15 years. During the first half of the 80's, with the commoditization of hard-drives, the hard-drive industry started to consistently use MB to mean 10^6, in contrast with the use in the rest of the industry. So, yes it is true that - with the exception of the size of the floppies, the hard-drive industry never used the units KB,MB,GB in their accepted sens in the rest of the industry, but their use of MB and GB has 10^6, 10^9 came AFTER the use of KB,MB unit had become... de facto standard. They are not the victims of a sudden mis-use or 'incorrect' used by the industry, but they were exploiting the notoriety of these unit to try to steal a buck.
They eventually got sued for this practice, and had to specify on their packaging and specs what special meaning they give to MB, whereas they still to this day use MB (and NOT MiB) for the cache memory without footnotes to explain the meaning, proving conclusively that the default and accepted meaning, both among professional and the public at large is MB=2^20 not 10^6.
Professional computer organizations, all the literature prior to 1999, still almost all the literature (except the one discussing of the standard themselves), all the operating systems (from Mainfraime to PC) still use K/KB, M/MB, G/GB in their industry de facto standard meaning. The JEDEC, an professional organization that normalized practice in the field of computer ships, still to this day give the definition of KB,MB,GB in their usual sens (they recently added a mention to the IEC notation, but 8-9 years after the IEC standard adoption, they still do not mandate their use, and Not a single chip of memory in the world is marked with the IEC notation). The only odd point is when dealing with the capacity of disk drive, where some specialized software do report their size in 'decimal' meaning. Yet all file sizes, when reported with a KB/MB/GB unit always refer to the common meaning of these units. Yes some open-source software have integrated the IEC notation to offer you the 'choice' to use them. None of them have made that the default (And at this point, due to the very low level of acceptance of these new unit, any such move would be patched-reverted in an instant).
Your characterization of this established used as 'incorrect' is a POV position of a very narrow group of Standard activists. That a standard have came up with a new notation (the notorious 'binary prefix') does not mean that all the other notations are plain 'incorrect'.
For example, in the medical field, practitioners indicate the blodd pressure in mmHg or cmHg, but not in Pascal, which is the S.I. standardized unit of pressure. That does not make them 'incorrect'. -- Shmget 22:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
We are talking about the use of prefixes kilo, mega and giga and their abbreviations, k, M and G on other than SI units. These were well established as having decimal meanings and were commonly applied to other than SI units long before any binary sense. The distinction between k and K is very blurred since from early on many practitioners used them interchangeably. It is clear both the common and standard usage prior to 1980 was decimal.
You are factually incorrect about the the establishment of byte as meaning octet, the seminal event was IBM's announcement of System/360 in 1964.
You are factually incorrect about hard disk drive manufacturers use of prefixes prior to 1980. Personally I have been involved with the HDD industry since 1968 and recall use of megabyte then. Some research indicates it may go back into the late 1950's. One example, the Memorex 1976 annual report has 10 instances of the use of megabyte to describe storage devices and media.
From the evidence[1] so far collected the most u can say is the the computer industry started using K&M in a non-traditional binary sense just about the same time the HDD industry started using them in the traditional sense.
In that sense, your inability to agree upon a term such as "non-standard" to describe this evolution is enforcing your POV. Tom94022 00:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Response copied from [Tom94022 Talk Page]

Thanks for the link to the Memorex report. Point in case, it does NOT use MB. it used megabyte, indeed but there was no symbol defined for this unit, and if construed as a S.I extension MB would have been unacceptable since B is already a S.I. unit : the Bel, and it was not used, appropriately, in that report.
As far as the 'byte'. Yes, you are right, the IBM announce in 1964 is 'seminal'. It took few years before the meaning became almost universal... and the evolution of the RAM is an important factor why rapidely almost all computer system used 8bit Byte, but I'll gladly concede that point - that I was off by 5 years or so, still the term was 'unified' by RAM not Hard drive use. Harddrive store and read bit ( ... me reminiscing about synchronization bits... :-) ), the reason it is chopped in 8 bits section is purely due to the way memory work):::As far as "your inability to agree upon a term such as "non-standard""... my revert was based on your use of 'incorrect'. That usage is not 'incorrect' just because it can be misused by mix and matching standards (I pick SI when it fir my need (prefix), but ignore them when they are no so convenient (B is already defined as Bel) -- Shmget 01:43, 28 May 200 (UTC)
We are talking about prefixes and their abbreviations, not the units themselves. As for example kiloton and megaton, SI prefixes used in their conventional sense with non-SI units. Your comment about bel misses the point.
Please also note the seminal 1974 | Winchester HDD article which makes extensive use of Mbytes in the conventional sense. Since arguably all of todays HDD's derive from this technology, I think the inventor gets the right to define his terms, in this case, the M in Mbytes is 106.
Further note a 1981 article[2] by Lou Stevens, generally acknowledged as one of the inventors of disk drives, which again extensively uses the phrase Mbytes for generic (tape and disk) storage requirements and notes that in the context of "main memory" ... "Kbyte = 1024" ... The article also distinguishes early disk drives as having "millions of characters" instead of Mbytes.
IMHO, it is but a short and consistent leap from megabyte and Mbyte to MB (particularly in the context of bit vs. byte).
I accept your comment that "incorrect" is inappropriate but again ask for an alternative! Deviant, unconventional or non-conforming come to mind. I'd appreciate a suggestion so you won't have to revert when I update.Tom94022 16:46, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
One more fact, please see the October 1974 |CDC Product Line Card for an unambiguous usage of MB to characterize HDD capacity in millions of bytes. So now I have shown you the 3 leading HDD companies of the 1970's using megabyte, Mbyte and MB all to mean millions of bytes. Can I have one word to describe the later deviant usage by the OS suppliers :-) Tom94022 17:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Legacy_Quantities_of_bytes

Courtesy notice that I have removed the links to this template and marked it for deletion because it is redundant (contained in Template:Quantities_of_bytes). -- RFST 22:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New

Quand tu auras le temps. Merci de te prononcer là et là. Cordialement --Olmeque (talk) 20:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)