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The Basics Of RAM
Segfault 11 writes: "Ars Technica has Part 1 of their RAM series, which discusses the way that static and dynamic RAM work, in addition to covering memory modules. To get started, click here to learn more."
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I know nothing about how my car works. I am not at all comfortable with upgrading it or maintaining it. The most complicated act I am able to perform is to put gas in it.
But I still use it, and need to use it, every single day. Ignorance about the internals of my car does not preclude me from using it in a valid fashion. Granted, if I were more informed about its workings I would probably be able to use it more efficiently, and more productively. But this gain is not worth the hassel I feel it would be to learn these things.
Computers are no different. They are a tool - nothing more, nothing less. The average person doesn't care how data is actually stored in their computer, or how interrupts work, or anything. They want a machine which is perfectly intuitive and can let them write reports or generate presentations or email their friends, and they do not care how these feats are accomplished.
I admit, today this scenario does not exist in as ideal a fashion as I have laid out. But that doesn't imply it cannot exist. Computers are fundamentally no different than cars - just more complicated. Thus, while it should take more work on our part, a system is able to be designed which fullfills these criteria. It is a challenge to computer scientists to create this system.
Furthermore, the digital computer is so powerful a tool that it should not be withheld from the majority of society for any reason. It has the power to radically alter our entire society, and if that means the loss of comfort for the "computer elite" (which I do not believe it does) than so be it. Why should society be denied such benenfits simply because a few people prefer computers to be special hi-tech playthings? I am happy that the car was not denied society in a similiar fashion.
Philip Quirk"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying." -- Woody Allen
ECC RAM is more expensive and it can be hard to find. Many stores don't stock it. In some computers it can be a bit slower than regular RAM.
After having repeatedly dealt with RAM with pattern sensitivity problems, I am a firm believer in ECC RAM. Trying to diagnose and repair a computer that crashes every few days, or only when certain programs are run, can be a major headache. Is the problem the RAM, other hardware, application programs, device drivers or the flakey operating system?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Yes. Static RAM can be highly dangerous.
Especially if you're out in the middle of the woods, on a moonless night, camping with your friends. The campfire has died down, and you've just finished off a six-pack of your favorite beer. You're now heeding nature's call, staggering away from the glowing embers in the firepit...
And then BANG!, the tailgate that you just *knew* you should have closed gets you in the balls. You lie writhing on the ground for a few minutes, then regain some control over yourself as the pain subsides, start to get up and you clock your head on the back bumper, which you didn't realize you were under.
Never turn your back on a static Ram. Or any other pickup truck that you've parked in the woods on a camping trip.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.