What is random axcess memory?

Answer 1

Pretty much all computer memory is Random Access Memory (note spelling) these days but computer folk who are as ancient as I am can remember a time when there was memory you could only access in a specific order. Imagine, for example, a book with no page numbers. You know the piece of information you want is in there somewhere but you don't know where. Your only option is to start at page one and flick through until you find it. Believe it or not, there used to be computer memory like this. What the memory hardware would do is present each of the values it had stored, in strict sequence, continuously cycling round. If you needed a particular value you had to wait for it to come around again. Random Access Memory was a bit of an innovation. You told the memory hardware the address (think of it as the page number in your book) of the item you wanted and bingo, it came straight out with it. You could access any location in the memory, chosen at random, and the results would come back at the same speed no matter which piece of information you were looking for. This was such an innovation that the computer folks called it "Random Access Memory", often abbreviated to RAM. The term stuck, even though all solid state memory is like this nowadays. Today, Random Access Memory, or RAM, has come to mean any solid state memory or, more specifically, the solid state memory installed in your computer.