Suppose the accumulater register of the processor is of 16 bit , now we can call this processor as 16 bit processor, that is this processor supports 16 bit addressing.
now my question is how we can calculate the number of memory cells that can be addressed by 16 bit addressing?
according to my calculation 2 to the power 16 becomes 65055 it means the memory have 65055 cells now if we take 1KB=1000 Bytes then this becomes 65055/1000=65.055 now this means that 65 kilo bytes memory can be used with the processor having 16 bit addressing.
now if we take 1KB=1024 Bytes then this becomes 65055/1024=63.5 ,it means that 63 kilo bytes memory can be used with this processor, but people say that 64 kilo bytes memory can be used.
Now tell me am i right or wrong and why i am wrong why people say that 64kb memory can be used with the processor having 16 bit addressing?
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155answers:
3
+1
A:
2 to the power 16 equals to 65536. Divided by 1024 gives us 64K.
Developer Art
2010-03-20 10:30:26
+1
A:
2 to the power of 16 is 65536, not 65055. And 1KB is 1000 Bytes, so 65536 / 1KB is 65.536 is 65 KB, so that' technically correct, but programmers usually mean 1024 Bytes when they say KB. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte
65536/1024 = 64.0
John Knoeller
2010-03-20 10:31:19
technically 1KB is 1000 bytes, the correct name for 1024 is kB or KiB, but programmers almost always say KB when they mean 1024. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte
John Knoeller
2010-03-20 10:44:04
@John Knoeller, when 16 bits processors were current, nobody (at least me) had head about KiB, and KB really meant 1024 bytes. While I understand the rationale behind the standardisation, I'm too used to think of KBs being 1024 bytes, and KiB look weird.
David V.
2010-03-20 10:54:06
The whole industry except HDD makers have ignored IEC's advice on KB and KiB. Nobody says kibybyte, everyone says kilobyte.
iconiK
2010-03-20 10:58:42
@David: The metric system dates back to the 1960s as a worldwide standard. 16 bit processors go back to about 1980. I'm as guilty as anyone of using KB to mean 1024 for most of the last 30 years, but it really can't go on like that forever. Too much chance of crashing a mars lander ;)
John Knoeller
2010-03-20 11:00:39