Quick way to convert ?


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No, that's not the right way. for one thing, you went from .5 gig to 4.2 gig, and that's just not possible (unless you're switching from one type of unit to another).

to me, 0.5Gbit equals exactly 500,000,000 bits.

but, 0.5GByte could be either 500,000,000 bytes, or 524,288,000 bytes, depending on the circumstance.

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I'm not going to read what you wrote in hopes of getting a clean crack at this.

Converting 0.5 Gb to bits.

1 Gb = 1024 Mb = 1048576 Kb = 1073741824b

1073741824 / 2 = 536870912 bits

The reasoning for my conversions is due to data storage being represented in base 2 (binary) and not base 10 (decimal).

One thousand (killa) in decimal is 10^3 and 2^10 in binary (1024).

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Giga is 10^9, so .5 Gigabits = .5 x 10^9 = 500,000,000. You don't need to convert to bytes or do anything with bytes. Your converting from bits to bits.

Normally, for us, yeah...

But in computers, a kilo != 1000. a kilo = 1024. And a =giga = 1024 kilos.

Only hard drive manufacturers use kilo = 1000 in the computer world (to make their drives seem 'bigger'). You think that maybe they have some 'size' issues? :laugh:

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Well actually markjensen was right, in terms of computers it's different. Anyone know the history behind that?

Just the way binary works. Everything is double the last number... it's kind of hard to explain... but um... yeah... I guess 1024 was close to 1000 so they just called it kilo.

Edit: meant 1000 not 100 :pinch:

Edited by Banjo
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If we're just talking about single bits, then there's absolutely no reason to convert them to bytes or multiply them by 8 or 1024 or anything else.

.5 Gb = 500,000,000 bits

There is no other answer.

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Computers work on 2^x powers when they started out 1024 kbytes was only a diff of 24 no big deal so they thought may as well make it base 10 Wrong. Now a 160 Gb hard drive = 149 REAL GB thats a diff of a REAL 11 GB big difference.

As well: 1 Gb = 1024 Mb = 1048576 Kb = 1073741824b

1073741824 / 2 = 536870912 bits

Seems right to me amoeba

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If we're just talking about single bits, then there's absolutely no reason to convert them to bytes or multiply them by 8 or 1024 or anything else.

.5 Gb = 500,000,000 bits

There is no other answer.

You've just proved you ineptitude of the binary numbering system.

The way I proved it was right.

@OPaul: What else do I have to do on a Monday night? I was just being mean and cold-hearted.

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Is this the right way of converting 0.5gbits to bits.

0.5 gbits = 500mbits x 1024 = 512,000 kbits x 1024 = 524,288,000 bytes x 8 = 4194304000 bits ?

0.5 gbits = 512mbits x 1024 = 524,288 kbits x 1024 = 536,870,912 bits (no need for 'x 8 = 4194304000 bits' because it's already in bits)

or

0.5gbits x 8 = 4 gbytes x 1024 = 4096 mbytes x 1024 = 4,194,304 kbytes x 1024 = 4294967296 bytes / 8 (convert back to bits) = 536,870,912

536,870,912 bits for sure

amoeba & insurektion are also right :)

edit:

also: 0.5 gigabits in bits

Edited by Quick Reply
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its 1024 not 1000 because thats the largest base 10 number you can represent with ...howevermany bits that is (sorry, long day, cant do math anymore, can only explain theory :s) 111111111111 (howevermany 1s) comes out to be 1024, not 1000

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