1900 MHZ = 1.9 GHZ Why reference...

[Apoc]

This is just a general question has anyone every figured out why everyone references 1.9GHZ with 1900 Megahertz? I know your not getting true speed with any of the processing information but still my 2 cents says, 1.9 Gigahertz says power. Anyone else??

[SirIsaacNewton]

"Giga-" and "Mega-" are the scientific abbreviations for 'billion" and million". 1 Giga- is 1000 Mega-'s -- 1 billion equals 1000 million.

1.9 Giga-hertz is just another way of saying 1900 Mega-hertz. The numbers refer to the FREQUENCY at which the radio signal operates. They have nothing whatsoever to do with POWER.

As for "why?" I suspect the marketeers think that "1900" of anything sounds more impressive than "1.9" of something else.....

[KevinJames]

Sir Isaac.

I'm sure you glad you replied to this. When I read it last night I could not help but wonder "Why is this important?" I was going to respond from a like perspective, but I just couldn't find the words. (How about 19,000 kilohertz! Does that jazz you?)

[SirIsaacNewton]

Kevin,

As you know, I'm not a marketeer. I'm a college professor and computer consultant.

But continuing Apoc's original thought, I'm sure that someone somewhere decided that "1900" sounds better than "1.9" and someone else decided that "Giga-" sounds more important (let's call it a more 'powerful' metaphor!) than "Mega-". Thus, competing marketing. Now, "1900 Giga-" would doubtless be the real seller -- but alas, we just aren't there yet with convenient radio transmitters...

But your comment about 'kilo-' brings up the following point: It's almost too 'trivial'. Everybody knows 'kilo'. If they were educated in the last 20 years, they were exposed to the metric system. Things in the supermarket are sold by the 'kilo-' gram. We buy electricty by the 'kilo-'watt. 'Kilo-' just isn't spiffy enough for the "sparkling" technology of cellular phones -- which as you well know are being marketed as 'sizzle', not as 'steak'. So in that vein, any number of 'kilohertz' just sounds so 'common'. People stopped using 'kilohertz' radios a half-century ago; I have never heard of a 'kilohertz' computer (although I have used them! They were never called that..)

But you and I doubtless have the same view of the cellular industry. Why is ANYTHING important to a marketeer?

[Kenny]

And it's the same with computers...we've gone from 900 MHz (Mega-hertz) Intel Chips to 1.x to 2.x GHz (Giga-hertz) Intel Chips. But a 1.9 GHz computer is another way of saying a 1900 MHz computer. I guess it just seemed natural to do it that way.

There are many examples, rather than saying "move over 100 centimetres" ... you can simply say "move over a metre." And instead of saying "I've used up 12,000 MB (Megabytes) of storage on my hard drive" ... it's natural to use the term "I've used up 12 GB (Gigabytes) of storage on my hard drive."

From Bytes to Megabytes to Gigabytes to Terabytes, you basically are multiplying 10 to the power of 3 (10^3 = 1000) from one "level" to the next.

[erub]

actually, with computer hard drive space, 1024 megabytes in one gigabyte. Because its based on factors of 2 [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[Wayne]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH END THIS THRED ALREADY!!!! LOL [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

[KevinJames]

why?

Does it mega-hurts?

Or maybe you feel you might "kilo-ver" (keel over)

If someone laughs so hard while giggling, does it giga-hurts?

If man expresses an opinion in a forest when no one, no even his wife, is around, is he still wrong?

[Apoc]

hmmmm..... i c !

[Apoc]

*PssH*

[jacobrich]

Kilohertz sounds so 1940's [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

-Jake

[Matt]

so I'm at 19,000,000 Hz right? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

I remember when hard drives started appearing at 1GB - they were initially advertised as "1100MB" so people would know they are actually getting something larger.

I think 1900 is around as opposed to 1.9 just to use a standard label of Megahertz.....

Not enough zeroes there, Matt. But I had to look at it 3 times before I realized it.

In your paradigm, it would be 1,900,000,000 Hz.


And for Kenny from his comment from _way_ back yonder about 900MHz PCs:
The original IBM PC was even slower than 2MHz (I believe it was 1.8MHz -- but I'm sure someone on this board will correct me). The first PC (like running DOS 2.0) I personally owned (1983!) was 2MHz -- and supported a "huge" (by the standards of the day) 10MB harddrive.
I believe the Commodores, Atari's, and maybe even the lovable 'trash-80' of the late '70's were even slower than 1.8MHz, but even I don't go back that far with PC's. (Mainframes, Yes! But nothing that you could pick up without a forklift!)