On Tuesday 19 July 2005 03:34, Greg Wallace wrote:
Right. I'm just used to calling internal memory RAM. Why? I don't know. So what is the common term you use when you're talking about the chips in your machine as opposed to, say, a disk drive? As you say they're both RAM. They're also both memory (one short term, one long term).
Sadly I sometimes fall into the same misuse. I try to keep myself to using terms like 'internal memory' (slightly inaccurate, but not as inaccurate as RAM) or 'main memory' (perhaps the best term to use) Terminology is important. And this is probably the most misused term of all. Looking at the output of 'dict ram', even the dictionaries get it wrong. WordNet worst of all, they have RAM to be synonymous with read/write memory, which is so far up the wall I want ask them to paint the ceiling while they're up there. ROM can be (and usually is) RAM