Memory Visual

I wanted to understand the difference between Kbps and Kb, memory and internet speeds.

Internet - data transfer speeds is - kbps = kilo bits per sec
Memory - file sizes/capacity is - KBps = Kilo Bytes per sec

8 bits = 1 byte

So on a 56 k... bits per sec modem (dial up) you can download 7 Kilo Bytes Per Sec. of a particular file.

Therefore if you follow the bottom with the icons you can see the file sizes/capacities of different hardware/software... could in future differentiate/seperate the 2 but most people are aware of what is hardware and which is software. Allows for contextualising the file sizes/capacities together, tufte would say seperate.

Suppose people have to remember that it increments in hundreds for KB, then increments in hundreds for MB, GB.... So there isnt the same amount measured. there is a new ratio.

tried to make this explicit with the MB ratio to B, i.e. 1 MB = 1,000,000 Bytes

I provide a table to give estimates of total secs for particular file sizes, linking the differentiated ratios to the KB, MB ratio's.

Well, creating this helped me realise the actual download file size/capacity of my broadband which isnt 2MBps (basic sky), it is 244KBps, slightly smaller.

I love how the isometric gives the non-physical data an abstract space, and make you associate file sizes, speeds with volume, area, capacity like its filling land creating measure of distance associated with time. Its no longer just stats & figures.

Memory sticks, ipods are now topographic landmarks that can be contrasted in their volume/file size capacity to each other.

There may be a better rendering, representation of the data, maybe an isometric '3d' treemap, or an isometric pyramid, but I think it is a pretty good attempt to simplify complex data with quite a few variables,

internet data speed - dial up 56kbps, broadband, wireless broadband
internet download times - i.e. not just per seconds... i give average totals
file sizes/capacity - B, KB, MB, GB
contemporary products/prices - their capacity in relation

well much help was from here with calculating data speeds/file size per sec
http://www.tamiltorrents.net/forums/showthread.php?t=30078

almost like for like table of estimate file/broadband times
http://www.broadband.co.uk/guide.jsp?section=3

wireless networks, speeds such as GPRS, HSCSD, EDGE (usa), GSM
http://www.mobile-phones-uk.org.uk/gprs.htm

plus other places, but these were the main.

Please feel free to comment, please do ask permission before reproducing i.e. printing, if on the internet please reference this post or http://chriswatsondesign.viviti.com/ .

See more of my work at http://chriswatsondesign.viviti.com/

Hope you like.

many thanks to arnaud velten - as map, claude achenbrenner - serial mapper