Talk:Units of information

Ny?

Someone added a note claiming that "ny" is the abbreviation for "nybble". I coud not find a reference with Google, but maybe I didn't look right. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 00:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

256 bytes: paragraph

[1]. x86 paragraph is 16 bytes (in real mode or virtual x86 mode), but what paragraph may be 256? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 21:27, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

How many bits do we know about ancient Greek culture?

Some one had estimated this (a billion or trillion bits???), probably in connection with the Drake equation -- perhaps in an attempt to estimate the energy cost of sending, across the galaxy, an amount of information worth sending in light of the delay before getting back a "Could you say a little more about that?" message. Probably not a notable coinage for inclusion, since not mentioned in the article, but i can't even recall for sure the name (a Hellade?) they proposed, in order to rule it out with a Google search. Anyone else remember this?
--Jerzy•t 07:32, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Nybble "unusual or obsolete"?

Since hexadecimal is so often used to represent bitstrings, I'd hardly say the nybble is "unusual or obsolete" - indeed, the fact that it's got its own section higher up seems to belie this. Twin Bird (talk) 15:30, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Quad term is listed as 2 bit?

The meaning of "quad" in my memory was not 1/4th of something, it was and is 4 of something. Calling 2 bits a quad is not correct. a quad is 4 bits just as a byte is 8 bits. I have found numerous items on google where quad = 4 of something, but have not found an instance of where quad = 1/4 of something. One instance is http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/EDG/binary/pdf/find/25-1e/3.pdf (calvin Thomas 28 June 2013) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.254.58.8 (talk) 17:00, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I can’t point to an explicit usage, but the quad term for “2-bits” could or should refer to the fact that 2 bits may encode a set of 4 or a quad of symbols; cf. 2-phase stepper motor quadrature and 2-bit quadrature encoding. IveGoneAway (talk) 22:57, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Nonencyclopaedic section should be removed

The section Units of information#Obsolete and unusual units lists essentially humorous units of measurement with citations that are not in general secondary sources, and mostly did not enter into general use; they are mostly simple attempts at humour. The heading of the section is also misleading. This section is IMO utterly unencyclopaedic and should be deleted. —Quondum 14:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Failure to distinguish between units of digital capacity and units of information

There is a distinction between digital information capacity, which corresponds to the logarithm of the number discrete states of which any one may be selected, and the logarithmic measure of uncertainty that is used in information theory. The former is appropriately measured in bits, trits, bytes, decits etc., whereas the units for the latter are shannons, nats and hartleys. This article should highlight the distinction in what is being measured, and accordingly, the units that apply in each case. It would, for example, be valid to describe a particular 8 bits of storage as holding 5.32 shannons of information, depending on the statistics (entropy) of the stored information (one bit can hold between 0 and 1 shannon). —Quondum 21:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello

Linux Ounman (talk) 22:39, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

gulp

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095912243

https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/gulp --Espoo (talk) 14:57, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

32b words on IA-32?

> In the IA-32 architecture more commonly known as x86-32, a word is 32 bits

Really? Historically on Windows, and e.g. with MASM, words are 16b because of the 8086 (which is a 16b arch) roots of IA-32. For e.g a 32b number, “double word” is used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:910:103A:0:5054:FF:FE94:A3F7 (talk) 10:02, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

bp and qbit

I think genetic base pairs should be listed as equivalent to two bits, and qbits, while not a unit of classical information, should at least be mentioned as a related concept with a link to quantum information theory. 2A02:8108:8AC0:3A20:5799:6582:948A:1AE3 (talk) 06:02, 19 August 2024 (UTC)