From:	Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject:	Re: What's a megapulse?
Date:	Wed, 27 May 1998 09:31:01 +1000

Ubiratan P. Alberton writes:

>With the recent computing discussion going around here, something has
>come to my mind. How much is a megapulse worth in today's "data
>measuring units (i.e bytes, megabytes, etc.). I'm using 8 megabytes
>based on a somewhat quick calculation for a byte in a quartenary system
>(64 bits, as oposed to 8 from todays binary computers).


It is stated repeatedly throughout the sourcebooks that a megapulse is a
measurement term that has no relation whatsoever to bits, bytes, nybbles,
dynners, plytes, or dysserts (a nybble is 4 bits, a plyte is 2 bytes, a
dynner is 4 bytes, and a dyssert is a checksum bit on the end of a byte).
Although it is a measure of information size, the holographic storage
mechanism used in SR is not even compatible with current media, and can give
weird results (eg, a plain text file may be larger in size than the
equivalent file using formatted text). The term comes from pulse (well, duh)
which is a quantum of light, and indicates the number of quanta required to
represent the data.

In other words, don't try to find a comparison.

--
sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com