2007-11-23 20:34:19 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
A lot of people here have the correct idea, but aren't expressing it exactly right. Computers are BINARY devices because the "0" represents the "off" in a binary circuit and the "1" represents the "on" in the same binary circuit. If you have enough combinations of these numbers you can assign them to mean things like "calculate weather temperature averages for the month of June", which is the power of computers (which still have limitations). If you go to the number "three" you will actually see it written as "10" because these numbers are expressed in BASE TWO - which is NOT the same as the "powers" of two, which implies a multiple of 10, such as "10 to the 2nd power" or "ten squared" which equals one-hundred (in "base 10" - which is what you normally see. As a result of this you get 2 and multiples of two for the figures. In fact, when you see a rating of one megabyte for the RAM memory, etc., that number is actually equal to 1,024,000, and not an even one million because it is all "based" on the binary number system. Hope that helps!
2007-11-23 21:40:00 · answer #1 · answered by Paul Hxyz 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They are not strange amounts, but powers of two. It's easiest to make memory in a square, and the next larger square that works well is twice as large on each side. So the early RAM chips went from 1024 bits (not bytes), which was 32 x 32, to 4096, which was 64 x 64, then 16384 = 128 x 128, 65536 = 256 x 256, etc. Since the physical sixe of the memory elements was smaller with each generation, the actual size of the memory chips changed very little from one capacity to the next.
2007-11-23 20:47:19 · answer #2 · answered by rkeech 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they are powers of 2 my friend. It's a comp sci. convention since the binary number system (which is a number system using base 2 where as our regular everyday system is base 10 hence the term decimal system) is the foundation of computer topics.
2007-11-23 20:36:00 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Erm it started as 8 and so has to be a multiple of 8. I forget why. And like guy above me said, it's doubled.
2007-11-23 20:37:28 · answer #4 · answered by illunatic 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A computer is a binary device (two states, on or off) and, because of this, sizes are based on powers of two.
2007-11-23 20:37:36 · answer #5 · answered by DaveNCUSA 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Because they are 4ssholes.... and want one song to not go on when it is almost full :D
Nah I really don't know.
2007-11-23 20:36:31 · answer #6 · answered by Missy 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Because everything has to be double of each other. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024, ...
2007-11-23 20:37:10 · answer #7 · answered by Jenkins 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋