Terry wrote in
oups.com:

They are just padding the numbers. It is a good thing she found this
information before she packed it up and took it back for nothing.


While I agree that the advertising is misleading it is common practice
to report installed memory as opposed to 'usable' memory.

Likewise for hard disks, where the size is often reported as unformatted,
which is completely useless, of course. Then depending on what file
system it is formatted in (NTFS for example) you get a big chunk devoted
to the file system and not available for your stuff.

Same thing could be said for FSB (front side bus) speeds and the like.

Once consumers became more computer literate and learned what 'numbers'
to shop for, manufactures built machines that 'looked' good.

Celeron. Need I say more?

So in this case I don't blame wally world.