WHAT IS RAM ? How Does RAM Work?

BY: GURU (DAVE SMITH )

RAM is short for random-access memory, and it's the solid-state memory (chip

memory) in your computer.

Pretend your brain is a computer. Your brain has got long-term memory and

short-term memory. RAM is like your brain's short-term memory. Nothing stays in

short-term memory for very long.

If you're trying to do math problems with your brain, your short-term memory

(RAM) is calculating away, but it is pulling in bits of stored information, such as the

multiplication table, from your long-term memory to help.

Information is programmed into your long-term memory, just as computer

programs remain on your hard drive

After you finish the math problem, you'll probably forget exactly how you solved it. That information leaves

your short-term memory. You'll still know how to solve that kind of math problem, however, because that

information is programmed into your long-term memory, just as computer programs remain on your hard drive.

How RAM works

When you want to use a program, your operating system copies the program from the hard drive into RAM,

where the program is run. Your computer uses RAM as its work space and short-term storage area, because

RAM is much faster to work with than the hard drive. That's why adding more RAM to your computer will often

speed it up a great deal.

Most programs are too big to fit in RAM all at once. They use various schemes to load parts of the program into

RAM as needed, and then unload them when they don't need them. That's why your program continues to

access your hard disk even after it's loaded. Smaller programs will load entirely into RAM and never access

the disk again.

RAM is also used to store data that is currently being operated on. That data will stay in RAM until it is saved to

the hard disk, or until the computer is turned off -- in which case it is wiped out. Your word processing

program provides a good example. Changes you make to a Word document are stored in RAM. If you don't

save them to the hard drive before turning off the computer, they're lost.