The discrepancy arises in the translation from base 2, which the computer uses, to base 10 which people use. In base 10 the easiest number to deal with divide easily by 10 such as 100, 1000, 10 000 etc. In base two the easiest number to deal with differ such as 128, 256, 1024, etc.
A thousand bytes, commonly called a kilobyte, is not exactly a 1000 bytes (base 10) but rather 1024 bytes (base 2). Likewise a million bytes, commonly called a megabyte, is not 1000 kilobytes (base 10) but 1024 kilobytes (base 2).
As the amount of RAM installed increases the differences between the two numbers compounds as the table below shows:
| Megabytes | Kilobytes |
| 1 MB | 1024 KB |
| 2 MB | 2048 KB |
| 3 MB | 3096 KB |
| 16 MB | 16 384 KB |
| 24 MB | 24 576 KB |
| 32 MB | 32 768 KB |
| 64 MB | 65 536 KB |
Multiplying the number or megabytes of RAM installed by 1024 gives the total kilobytes of RAM shown in the About This Computer window.