Talk: Gigabyte

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The change by DaleNixon on Oct 13, 2003 is questionable. I have lived in the US for 20 years and I have never heard anyone pronounce Giga as Jiga except in the movie "Back to the Future". Even the director's commentary that comes with the movie's DVD admitted that the actors misprounced Jiga-Watts because they were clueless of what Giga was back then. Dale should clarify in which language Jiga is used. Kowloonese

My change is in fact correct. Please look up "gigabyte" at www.merriamwebster.com. You will note that both pronunciations are acceptable. I first encountered this in a databases class as a senior in college in computer science. My textbook pointed out the oft-ignored pronunciation of Giga as Jiga. DaleNixon 21:24, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Kowloonese and have reverted Dale's change. Angela 07:32, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I believe that a gigabyte is 1024 Megabytes, not 1000. I am a computer engineer and we never use 1000, always 1024. this is further illustrated when you go a goggle calculator by using "1 gigabyte in megabytes" and the result comes back as 1024. This is clearly an error, i shall fix it. 19:26, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am afraid this is incorrect. Offically 1 gigabyte equals 10^9 bytes, and not 2^30 bytes. The problem is that some hardwarde and software manufacturers do no comply to this international standard. (These SI prefixes refer strictly to powers of 10. They should not be used to indicate powers of 2 (for example, one kilobit represents 1000 bits and not 1024 bits).[1]). Donar Reiskoffer 06:42, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Canadian usage

You said that a thousand million is a billion in American usage. Is there a Canadian usage that differs from it?? If so, what is a billion in Canadian usage?? User 66.32.68.243

British English used to use billion to mean a million million, but thousand million is the usual meaning nowadays; see Billion. 82.36.26.32 04:03, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)