Short Courses IRC News Staff Activities Subscribe to Benchmarks Online Computer Memory By Duane Gustavus , UNIX Research Analyst P art of the difficulty of understanding any new body of knowledge is mastering new terminology. Now this is not a problem peculiar to computer technology. A very broad cross-section of the population has recently become exposed to the arcana of computer technology. Familiar words remain, however, which might confuse the unwary due to their altered meaning in computer contexts. Perhaps I can thing the fog a bit by pointing out some of them.
Memory is as good a place to start as any.
The fact that computers store information, rather than old clothes that no longer fit, is probably why they have memories instead of closets, but the crucial concept here is storage. The context of human memory that we all experience on a personal basis can be very misleading when applied to computers. Volatile and Non-volatile Computer memory may take many physical forms which are usefully differentiated by the permanence of the information storage. My grandma had non-volatile memory in her light switches and used a light bulb on the ceiling to display the state of the switch. If the validity of the information is dependent on keeping the power turned on, the memory is referred to as volatile.