Although early computers such as EDSAC made successful use of mercury delay line memory, the technology had several drawbacks; it was heavy, it was expensive, and it did not allow data to be accessed randomly.
Malia que os primeiros computadores como o EDSAC usaban liñas de retardo de mercurio, esta tecnoloxía presentaba varios inconvenientes: era pesada, era cara e non permitía o acceso aleatorio ós datos.