Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!rose!ccplumb
From: ccplumb@rose.uwaterloo.ca (Colin Plumb)
Subject: Re: Translating 64-bit addresses
Message-ID: <1991Mar12.114225.20093@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Owner of Many System Processes)
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <1991Mar11.213619.6949@craycos.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1991 11:42:25 GMT
Lines: 35

rh@craycos.com (Robert Herndon) wrote:
>
>Those 10^(n*3) powers used so often in engineering and the
>sciences are:
>
>    English prefix	multiplier	symbolic prefix
>	exa-		10^18			X?  [No, E]
>	peta-		10^15			P
>	tera-		10^12			T
>	giga-		10^9			G
>	mega-		10^6			M
>	kilo-		10^3			K
>	milli-		10^-3			m
>	micro-		10^-6			u (greek mu)
>	nano-		10^-9			n
>	pico-		10^-12			p
>	femto-		10^-15			f?  [Yes, f]
>	atto-		10^-18			a?  [Yes, a]

The letter prefix for exa- is E.  EHz, EeV (stop drooling, particle physicists),
etc.  Exabyte got their name from something.

femto and atto are indeed 10^-15 and 10^-18, respectively, as you
have illustrated them.

Officially, the letter prefix for kilo is lower case k, not upper case K,
but I like the upper case implies >1 pattern.

Then there's deci- for 1/10 and centi- for 1/100, as well as numbers
(deka and hecto, I think) for 10 and 100, but nobody ever uses those.

As all who have implemented RS232 can attest, standards are meant to be
ignored when convenient... long live the mho!
-- 
	-Colin