> 1024 bearing near ubiquitous was only the case in the 90s or so

More like late 60s. In fact, in the 70s and 80s, I remember the storage vendors being excoriated for "lying" by following the SI standard.

There were two proposals to fix things in the late 60s, by Donald Morrison and Donald Knuth. Neither were accepted.

Another article suggesting we just roll over and accept the decimal versions is here:

https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/si-and-binary-prefixes-clearing...

This article helpfully explains that decimal KB has been "standard" since the very late 90s.

But when such an august personality as Donald Knuth declares the proposal DOA, I have no heartburn using binary KB.

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news99.html

On the most recent 2026 page he writes that The Art of Computer Programming Volume 4C did go into print. Crazy to think about that he works on the series since the 60s and presumably won't finish the remaining Volumes 5,6 and 7.