The first one
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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I'd say one point thirty-two. As others noted, much depends on geography.
Personally, I say the "actual" number up to 3 or 4 decimal places, with a lot of the reason depending on the specific context. If I had to asses, I'd say I say the "whole" number in over 50% of cases for 3 digits, and in about 10% for 4 digits. Anything over 4 decimal places and I fall back to individual digits.
Depending on the necessary precision it could be "a meg and change" π
Decimals are usually spelt out a digit at a time. 3.14159 would be three point one four one five nine, not three point fourteen thousand one hundred and fifty nine. 37.32 would be thirty-seven point three two. If it's not a decimal but something like a version string then you could say v3.14 is version three point fourteen, and three point one four might be confused with 3.1.4 even though you didn't say the second point. IP addresses are a bit mixed; I'd say ten ten, but also one nine two dot one six eight.
The first one is correct as others have said, but the second one is not ambiguous enough to confuse anyone nor weird enough for anyone to bat an eye at, you're fine with either.
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Usually one point three two
I grew up with science classes telling us always state the digits individually. One point three two.
Math class taught me to be precise I should always say "1 and 32 hundredths Megabytes"
I don't think that's any more precise, just more verbose (read: inefficient).
Ten-million-five-hundred-and-sixty-thousand bits.
One point three two, or one three two if it's obvious from context where the decimal point is. That's how you're meant to pronounce digits after the decimal point in general.
One point three two. To me, thirty two is an integer.
The only way you could use 'thirty two' correctly for that number would be 'one and thirty two hundredths' which would be pretty unusual.
Agree. For things like semantic versioning, in which "1.20.1" and "1.2.1" are two different things, you want to pronounce them "one point twenty point one" and "one point two point one", respectively. But that is a bit of an outlier. File size should be pronounced "normally", because "1.20" and "1.2" are the same value.
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One point four four
I have heard people drop the "point" and say "One Fourty-four".
Tree fiddy!
First question, and itβs important: Are you Doc Brown?
Neither.
It's pronounced: "one and thirty-two hundreths of a megabyte". Properly.
But idgaf how you pronounce it as long as I understand exactly what you're saying. Personally, "one point three two".
I mostly heard it one point thirty two? Grew up in Sweden, living in France. If someone says one point three two I'd assume they're Americans.
I might be totally wrong, just stating what I have heard
No that's interesting, I was wondering if there was a cultural divide.
Thirty two sounds so alien to me, but I heard it in a Nerdstalgic video and wondered if it was an American thing
Definitely, in frech itd be un point trente-deux mΓ©gaoctets or 1.32mo
edit: forgot not everyone speaks french, the french version is one point thirty-two
Interesting - is there a point at which you'd switch to saying individual digits? Like if you're listing eight digits of pi, is it still three point fourteen million, one hundred fifty-nine thousand, two hundred sixty-five?
There doesnt seem to be a hard line, but at some point, yes. If i had to i'd put it i'd pur it once you get past the millions.
But theres also people who say it like people in english. It might be a regional thing.
Tell you what, i'll ask around today and see what people say.
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I had the same experience (also European), but didn't know the Americans changed it specifically for bytes
We don't. That's just the normal way most people pronounce numbers with a decimal point. The big exception is prices: $1.32 is often pronounced "one thirty two".
Oh I see, thank you
Jeden przecinek trzydziesci dwa
I agree that the precision is not that valuable as some have said. I'd just read the numbers off as one point two three megabytes since anyone who cares can reconstruct the number, anyone who doesn't can stick to the first few sig figs.
For 257.62 GB I'd say "two hundred fifty seven point six two". Yep. I put in the effort for the most significant of the digits, I dont bother beyond that.
8249.19 GB? About 8 terabytes. Doesnt really matter anymore.
"about a meg" because it's almost unthinkable anyone cares about 3 tenths of a meg much less 2 hundredths.
"about a meg" because it's almost unthinkable anyone cares about 3 tenths of a meg much less 2 hundredths.
Tell me you never used floppy discs as a storage medium without telling me.
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The former.
Canada (Ontario) here. Was taught explicitly to say "point three two"
growing up with floppy disks and diskettes on the east coast US it was 'one point two megabyte' and 'one point four four megabyte' exclusively
One and thirty-two hundreths
"One point three two", because otherwise the question is 'thirty two what'. Consider what happens if we put a zero on the end β does it become "one point three hundred and twenty" despite being exactly the same number?
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About one floppy disk, with a little free space to spare.
Very little, around 60k.
A 1.44 "MB" floppy is 1440k, or about 1.406 real MB, and of that the space used by the FAT file system reduces it to around 1.38 free space.
For some reason I couldn't find the exact number and don't have any handy to check it myself.
Modified versions of various blank floppies
-------------------------------------------
These modifications reduce the number of
FAT tables from 2 to 1 and also reduce the
number of root entries down to 16 files,
which frees up some extra storage space.
The 1.72MB format can ONLY be used on Win9X
systems on real hardware, as not even WinNT
can access tracks 81 or 82 on floppy disks.
Disk image programs like WinImage can still
access files within 1.72MB floppy images.
1.44MB Standard:
80 Tracks 18 Sectors/Track
2880 Sectors Total 1474560 Bytes Total
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 1 Number of FATs: 2
Max Root Entries: 224 Sectors Per FAT: 9
1457664 Bytes Data
1.44MB Maxed:
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 4 Number of FATs: 1
Max Root Entries: 64 Sectors Per FAT: 3
1470464 Bytes Data
Differences:
-------------------------------------------
12800 Bytes More, 160 Less Root Entries
1.68MB Standard:
80 Tracks 21 Sectors/Track
3360 Sectors Total 1720320 Bytes Total
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 1 Number of FATs: 2
Max Root Entries: 224 Sectors Per FAT: 10
1702400 Bytes Data
1.68MB Maxed:
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 4 Number of FATs: 1
Max Root Entries: 64 Sectors Per FAT: 3
1716224 Bytes Data
Differences:
-------------------------------------------
13824 Bytes More, 160 Less Root Entries
DMF 1024 Standard:
80 Tracks 21 Sectors/Track
3360 Sectors Total 1720320 Bytes Total
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 2 Number of FATs: 2
Max Root Entries: 16 Sectors Per FAT: 5
1714176 Bytes Data
DMF 1024 Maxed:
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 4 Number of FATs: 1
Max Root Entries: 64 Sectors Per FAT: 3
1716224 Bytes Data
2048 Bytes More, 48 More Root Entries
DMF 2048 Standard:
80 Tracks 21 Sectors/Track
3360 Sectors Total 1720320 Bytes Total
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 4 Number of FATs: 2
Max Root Entries: 16 Sectors Per FAT: 3
1716224 Bytes Data
DMF 2048 Maxed:
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 4 Number of FATs: 1
Max Root Entries: 64 Sectors Per FAT: 3
1716224 Bytes Data
Differences:
-------------------------------------------
0 Bytes More, 48 More Root Entries
1.72MB Standard:
82 Tracks 21 Sectors/Track
3444 Sectors Total 1763328 Bytes Total
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 1 Number of FATs: 2
Max Root Entries: 224 Sectors Per FAT: 10
1745408 Bytes Data
1.72MB Maxed:
-------------------------------------------
Sectors Per Cluster: 4 Number of FATs: 1
Max Root Entries: 64 Sectors Per FAT: 3
1759232 Bytes Data
Differences:
-------------------------------------------
13824 Bytes More, 160 Less Root Entries
If you're interested in the blank disk images themselves, let me know.
Also, 1474560 / 1024 = 1440
If anyone could keep up with binary numbers back in the day, floppy disks were literally measured in binary megabytes.
The floppy disk format is based on the FAT12 file system.
https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~johnsojr/2012-13/fall/cs370/resources/UnderstandingFAT12.pdf
And with enough creative tweaks to that file system, you can get DMF 1.68MB format, and if you think a bit outside the box and erase the redundant secondary FAT table and settle on a max of only 16 files on the disk, you can squeeze a few more kilobytes out of that even.
I actually made a number of custom modded blank disk images with more storage space, I might dig out the full specs of all the variants later.
Its pronounced 'About four thirds megabytes.'
Only time I can think of where the 32 of 1.32 could be said as thirty-two would be as a software version number
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