[ee122] Homework 1: Base 2 or 10?

[Jeremy Fleischman]

In the questions from the end of chapter 1 and question 2, we are required
to convert between bits, bytes, megabytes, megabits, gigabytes, and
gigabits. My understanding (from CS 61C) is that telecommunications (such as
the internet) use base 10 as a conversion between many of these various
units. For example (note that a capital B = bytes and a lowercase b = bits)

1 Kb = 10^3 b

1 Mb = 10^3 Kb = 10^6 b

1 Gb = 10^3 Mb = 10^9 b

 

Furthermore:

1 B = 8 b

1 KB = 10^3 B = 8*10^3 b

1 MB = 10^3 KB = 10^6 B = 8*10^6 b

1 GB = 10^3 MB = 10^9 B = 8*10^9 b

 

It was under these conversion factors that I did the first half of problem
1. When I reached problem 2, I noticed that it says "(Note: 1 KB = 2^10
bytes, 1 Mbps = 10^6 bits/s)" These two appear to be contradictory, as one
conversion uses base 2 and the other uses base 10. I thought that 1 KB =
10^3 bytes, not 2^10 bytes! Of course, if we are talking about data storage,
then 1 KB could equal 2^10 bytes, however, don't we prefer the IEC notation
1 KiB = 2^10 bytes?

 

I've already switched my homework from base 2 to base 10, please let me know
if I need to switch back!

Jeremy Fleischman

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