Modems are often rated by their potential upload/download transfer rates. Does the designation "Mbps" stand for megabytes or megabits?
b is little bits - much more impressive numbers by marketing than B which is Bytes
eninja'd by Alan
You can also divide your rated speed by 8 to find out the max speed you can ever realistically achieve, however when downloading from the greater majority of sites never expect to achieve that max speed.
Example of my 6 Mbps connection ("I'm only paying for it at the 3 Mbps rate though ):
Download: 6144 = 768
Upload: 896 = 112
You can also divide your rated speed by 8 to find out the max speed you can ever realistically achieve
What is the significance of the number "8" you're using to determine max speed? Where does that number come from?
Also, in the two examples you site, I assume these numbers are now "kilobits" Right?
There are 8 bits in a byte. So when dividing by 8, you get your speed in *BYTES as apposed to *BITS
896kbps = 112KiB/s
6114Mbps = .768MiB/s or 768KiB/s
In the good old days, and possibly still in the backwoods with dial-up,
the magic number was 10 (or even 11 or 12).
A 300 Baud Asynchronous modem could transfer data at 300 bits per second.
Typically a UART could be configured to send 7 bits of data plus a parity checksum bit preceded by a Start bit and followed by a Stop Bit.
Those 10 bits would deliver any one character out of a 128 character set.
30 characters per second - much faster than Telex.
Sometimes the UART would be configured to pack a whole 8 bit data byte plus parity bit plus the start/Stop pair - and maybe a second Stop bit just to be sure.
Personally I preferred 2 stop bits for speedy and ensured recovery from a disruption of the connection.
There is no way to distinguish between a valid repetition of 0xAA and 0x55 given only one stop bit.
Uh huh.
Uh huh.
Made me laugh too. Rocket science tends to do that to some people.