Editing Ambiguity (section)

== Computer science ==
In [[computer science]], the [[SI prefix]]es [[kilo-]], [[mega-]] and [[giga-]] were historically used in certain contexts to mean either the first three powers of 1024 (1024, 1024<sup>2</sup> and 1024<sup>3</sup>) contrary to the [[metric system]] in which these units unambiguously mean one thousand, one million, and one billion. This usage is particularly prevalent with electronic memory devices (e.g. [[DRAM]]) addressed directly by a binary machine register where a decimal interpretation makes no practical sense.

Subsequently, the Ki, Mi, and Gi prefixes were introduced so that [[metric prefix#Binary prefixes|binary prefixes]] could be written explicitly, also rendering k, M, and G ''unambiguous'' in texts conforming to the new standard—this led to a ''new'' ambiguity in engineering documents lacking outward trace of the binary prefixes (necessarily indicating the new style) as to whether the usage of k, M, and G remains ambiguous (old style) or not (new style). 1&nbsp;M (where M is ambiguously {{val|1,000,000}} or {{val|1,048,576}}) is ''less'' uncertain than the engineering value {{val|1.0|e=6}} (defined to designate the interval {{val|950,000|to|1,050,000}}). As non-volatile storage devices begin to exceed 1&nbsp;GB in capacity (where the ambiguity begins to routinely impact the second significant digit), GB and TB almost always mean 10<sup>9</sup> and 10<sup>12</sup> [[bytes]].