>> As I remarked in a similar context when someone else was being
>> bitten by "metric" disk size claims from a disk maker, what they
>> need is for someone to slap them with a misleading-advertising suit.

> So, you're going to stand up in front of 12 people chosen from the
> population at large and inform them that "million" means 1,048,576
> instead of 1,000,000?

No; it doesn't: if a disk is advertised as 100 million bytes, I expect
100,000,000 bytes, not 104,857,600.  But 100 megabytes means, to the
rest of the computer industry, not 100 million but 100*2^20.

This is why I said misleading-advertising, not false-advertising: it is
misleading for them to advertise sizes in 10^6-byte "megabytes".  What
"mega" may mean in any other context is irrelevant; it misleads those
of their potential market that haven't noticed the 4.8+% error
(a majority thereof, I would guess).  And since they can reasonably be
expected to know this, claiming capacities in decimal megabytes is
being deliberately misleading, and hence is (or at least should be)
actionable.

> Just be glad that disk manufacturers don't report capacity in
> octal...

I dunno; then at least we'd get accurate sizes.  Grump.

					der Mouse

			    mouse@collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu