From: H. Peter Anvin N9ITP (hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu)
Date: 08/28/92


From: hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
Subject: Re: Rootimage 97-1
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 16:27:32 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.160343.12570@iitmax.iit.edu> of comp.os.linux,
  gkt@iitmax.iit.edu (George Thiruvathukal) writes:
>
> In my experience rawrite stops writing tracks once EOF is reached for the
> raw file. If the file were 1200KB, and KB==1000, then the number of bytes
> would be less than available on a 1.2MB diskette, where MB=1024*1024. Was
> an "error" message actually displayed?
>

Sorry about this. The sizes of PC floppy disks used by IBM and others are:

160K 180K 320K 360K 720K 1200K 1440K 2880K

where 1K = 1024 bytes. The reason we see "1.2M, 1.44M, 2.88M" is *not* due
to confusion, but to IBM's own definition of "megabyte" which is:

        1024K when dealing with internal memory,
        1000K when dealing with disks.

I have actually seen this "policy" in print, so don't flame me for it.

        /hpa

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