megabyte

A megabyte is a unit of computer storage, defined as 1,048,576 bytes.

It is sometimes abbreviated as ``Mb'' or ``Mbyte.'' Normally ``mega'' means a million, but in computer parlance a ``meg'' is 1K x 1K, where K is a ``kilo,'' meaning 1,024. The odd units are used because they are powers of 2: 1,024 is 2 to the 10th power, and 1,048,576 is 2 to the 20th power.

John Shipman, john@nmt.edu Last updated: 1997/05/22 22:14:21 UT URL: http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/g/megabyte.html