I just stumbled upon something rather amusing. I don't know if it's an indication of some not-too-far-off reality or what, but the OS X system info strings are... absurd. There are formatting rules for how to display RAM quantities in megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, and exabytes.

Quick recap:
1,024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte
1,024 gigabytes = 1 terabyte
1,024 terabytes = 1 petabyte
1,024 petabytes = 1 exabyte

Said differently...
1 terabyte = one thousand gigabytes
1 petabyte = one million gigabytes
1 exabyte = one billion gigabytes

I know technology changes quickly, but it seems beyond ridiculous to think that commodity hardware could be anywhere near approaching exabyte (or even petabyte) memory support.

On OS X 10.4.x, see /System/Library/CoreServices/Resources/English.lproj/AppleSystemInfo.strings, which contains the following:


"RAMInMB" = "%d MB";
"RAMInGB" = "%.*f GB";
"RAMInTB" = "%.*f TB";
"RAMInPB" = "%.*f PB";
"RAMInEB" = "%.*f EB";