Friday, September 19, 2003
Do we need to dumb down PC terminology?
Frankly I'm surprised that in this day, where finally it seems like every home has a personal computer, there isn't more standardization and "dumbing down" of computer terminology.
I guess to an extent we have. RAM can be referred to as "memory", which is understandable to most casual PC users. But often times, they'll confuse memory with hard drive space. Not everyone understands the difference between the two storage mediums.
CPU speed also gets confusing to average users. I'll ask what speed CPU a person has and sometimes get "It's a Pentium 2". "OK but what speed is it?", I ask. "I don't know, how do check that?" Of course sometimes I'll even get an answer like "It's 8 times" when asking about CPU speed. "Eight times" being the CD-ROM drive speed.
This might seem like a silly topic, and anyone with a decent knowledge of basic computer technology may laugh this off, but what prompted this thinking is a recent lawsuit filed in Los Angeles. It's a class-action suit against all the major PC manufacturers, alleging false advertising of hard drive capacities. Right away, anyone reading this who has ever installed and/or formatted their own hard drive and other rewriteable media, will groan. You know what's going on here, and you know why. 1 kilobyte could be said to be 1000 bytes. But 1 kilobyte is also 1024 bytes. People knowledgeable about computers know the difference. To Joe Everybody though, "kilo" means 1000.
It makes me think that perhaps it's time to standardize this kind of measurement. Even Windows doesn't seem to stick to one method of file size measurement. Some apps will display correct binary form kilobytes, whereas others will display the decimal form. Looking up the properties of your C: drive in Windows XP will display both.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11635
I guess to an extent we have. RAM can be referred to as "memory", which is understandable to most casual PC users. But often times, they'll confuse memory with hard drive space. Not everyone understands the difference between the two storage mediums.
CPU speed also gets confusing to average users. I'll ask what speed CPU a person has and sometimes get "It's a Pentium 2". "OK but what speed is it?", I ask. "I don't know, how do check that?" Of course sometimes I'll even get an answer like "It's 8 times" when asking about CPU speed. "Eight times" being the CD-ROM drive speed.
This might seem like a silly topic, and anyone with a decent knowledge of basic computer technology may laugh this off, but what prompted this thinking is a recent lawsuit filed in Los Angeles. It's a class-action suit against all the major PC manufacturers, alleging false advertising of hard drive capacities. Right away, anyone reading this who has ever installed and/or formatted their own hard drive and other rewriteable media, will groan. You know what's going on here, and you know why. 1 kilobyte could be said to be 1000 bytes. But 1 kilobyte is also 1024 bytes. People knowledgeable about computers know the difference. To Joe Everybody though, "kilo" means 1000.
It makes me think that perhaps it's time to standardize this kind of measurement. Even Windows doesn't seem to stick to one method of file size measurement. Some apps will display correct binary form kilobytes, whereas others will display the decimal form. Looking up the properties of your C: drive in Windows XP will display both.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11635
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