kilobyte

Coined in the 1960s, from kilo- (“thousand”) +‎ byte.

kilobyte (plural kilobytes)

1. (computing, especially RAM) A unit of storage capacity, equal to 1024 (2¹⁰) bytes : a kibibyte. Frequently abbreviated KB.
   • 1969, Hisashi Horikoshi, MEMORY CONTROL SYSTEM‎, US Patent 3618041:

     It is assumed herein that each block includes 32 bytes, each sector includes 1 kilobyte, the buffer memory 116 includes 4 kilobytes, and read data is represented by one double word or 64 bits, as one word in this case consists of 32 bits.

2. (computing, especially networking) 1000 (10³) bytes. SI Symbol: kB
   • 1969, Harold R. Dell, HIGH-DENSITY PERMANENT DATA STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM‎, US Patent 3638185:

     The data word processor 606 handles the in-flow and out-flow of byte-oriented input/output data and interleaved signals at a rate of, for example, 500 kilobytes per second. Instruction processing rates of four to eight per microsecond are required for such a data flow.

• kB, KB, ㎅

• Previous: byte
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• kibibyte
• kilobit

• The IEC explanation of its definitions

kilo- +‎ byte

kilobyte m (invariable)

1. (computing) kilobyte

Borrowed from English kilobyte.

• IPA^(key): /ˌkiloˈbajt(ʃ)(i)/

kilobyte m (plural kilobytes)

1. (computing) kilobyte (one thousand bytes)

• Abbreviations: KB, kB

• Multiples of the byte: kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, yottabyte

• kilobit
• kebibyte