by Thomas Walters

Created on: March 04, 2009

Random Access Memory - we shall begin with an analogy. Imagine I say to you, 'Remember the number 6'. You then remember this number by utilizing your short-term memory, correct? Now if I tell you, 'Remember the number 348580930129309' it would be a bit harder. If you have a great short-term memory, that is, if it is rather large, then you may-well still remember that number, correct?

Now what you just did by remembering the number 6 was a highly complex operation, you need not understand how it worked, but for now just know that I gave you a number, and you remembered it. When you go to sleep tonight it is more than likely that you will forget the number 6. Now, replace your short-term memory with RAM, and me with a processor. Central to computer programming are variables. That is values that are used to determine the way in which the program operates. If you were to open a word processor, and turned on the 'Bold' option, a variable inside of the programme would change, maybe from 0 (meaning off) to 1 (meaning on). This value, that is to be used when the user inputs text, is stored in an allocated spot inside of your RAM. Different variables need different amounts of RAM.

So imagine this. I open up an Internet Browser, it then creates a multitude of variables, for example - the value of the URL bar, and just how big the window is. Now if you change the value of the text box, it changes in the RAM. This then affects the rest of the application, say for example, if the value of the text box it 'Hello' then the application could display a red background for the text box, you get the idea.

Without RAM you could expect to turn on your computer and find everything the same, you would find that the daily operation would be far more difficult. The application would only ever be able to use, pre written values. Through this we can see that RAM is absolutly neccersary for operation of a PC.

Finally the size. You may hear people saying, 'Well if you only want to surf the web, 1GB should be fine'. What does this mean then? Well think of it like this - it makes sense to conclude that 1 application would take up less RAM than 10, isn't it? Well yes and no. See very large applications such as video-editing software, takes up more RAM than that of a calculator. So in theory the more RAM the better, it means you can open more applications, and have them function fully. The only thing left to consider is the speed. Currently there is a top speed of 1033Mhz. This basically means that it can send, receive and change values faster than RAM of 800Mhz.

I hope this short explanation has helped, and please remember the analogy at the beginning, it should see you on your way to a better understanding of RAM.

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