A computer has a 1024K memory. What does the letter K stand for?
A computer has a 1024K memory. What does the letter K stand for 1024.
K is short for kilo. It is used to represent both 1000 and 1024. 1024 is used only in measuring bits/bytes. It is so because 1024 is very close to 1000 but it is the exact 210 in computer science. When you measure other quantities like currency and years, k represents 1000 only.
In computing, K can either be 1000 or 1024, depending on the context in which K is used. For example, K is 1000 here: “My program has 50K lines of code”.
In this sentence, K is 1024: “This program takes up 250K bytes in memory”.In contexts other than computing (and by extension, software development) K is *more or less* interpreted as 1000, like in “Prashant earns 350K INR annually.” or “Coldplay tickets priced starting 25K.”