Definitions

The megabyte is frequently acclimated to admeasurement either 10002 bytes or 10242 bytes. The estimation of application abject 1024 originated as a accommodation abstruse abracadabra for the byte multiples that bare to be bidding by the admiral of 2 but lacked a acceptable name. As 1024 (210) approximates 1000 (103), almost agnate to the SI prefix kilo-, it began to be acclimated for bifold multiples as well. In 1998 the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) proposed standards for bifold prefixes acute the use of megabyte to carefully denote 10002 bytes and mebibyte to denote 10242 bytes. By the end of 2009, the IEC Standard had been adopted by the IEEE, EU, ISO and NIST. Nevertheless, the appellation megabyte continues to be broadly acclimated with altered meanings: