1 00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,160 Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 2 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:13,600 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Be there and welcome to tech Stuff. 3 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:16,200 Speaker 1: I'm your host job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer 4 00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:19,160 Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And today it's time 5 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:22,479 Speaker 1: for another classic episode of tech Stuff. We are going 6 00:00:22,520 --> 00:00:25,919 Speaker 1: all the way back to January second, two thousand twelve, 7 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:29,920 Speaker 1: and we're going to learn about random access memory in 8 00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:34,280 Speaker 1: an episode we called tech Stuff goes to raming speed. 9 00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:39,599 Speaker 1: Chris Palette and I decided to demystify the concept. How 10 00:00:39,640 --> 00:00:43,040 Speaker 1: did we do? Well, let's find out. Today we're gonna 11 00:00:43,040 --> 00:00:47,279 Speaker 1: be talking about memory, computer memory specifically. Yeah, and uh, well, 12 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:50,239 Speaker 1: you had a lot of people request over over the 13 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:52,599 Speaker 1: length of tech Stuff. Really the entire time we've been 14 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:54,080 Speaker 1: doing this, we have a lot of people ask us 15 00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:57,360 Speaker 1: to do a podcast about RAM and to kind of 16 00:00:57,360 --> 00:00:59,840 Speaker 1: talk about what RAM is, why you need it, and 17 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:02,320 Speaker 1: what does it do and how does it work? Which 18 00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:04,840 Speaker 1: is funny because we kept not doing it because we 19 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:07,880 Speaker 1: thought we already had it. Turns out not so much. 20 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:10,200 Speaker 1: I did a search for the word RAM in our 21 00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:16,000 Speaker 1: archives and uh saw a lot of programs but not RAM. 22 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:18,319 Speaker 1: And I even search for memory and the only memory 23 00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:20,600 Speaker 1: thing we've done is we've talked about hard drives, which 24 00:01:21,319 --> 00:01:24,480 Speaker 1: hard The relationship between hard drives and memory is a 25 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:27,199 Speaker 1: close one. It's an important one. And Uh, in fact, 26 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:31,200 Speaker 1: if we did not have RAM, if we if we 27 00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:34,280 Speaker 1: had not developed that, and we were relying solely upon 28 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:36,240 Speaker 1: the kind of memory that you would find in a 29 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:40,720 Speaker 1: typical hard drive, you know, the traditional hard drive. UH, 30 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:45,399 Speaker 1: computer operations would take much longer than what we're accustomed to. Yeah. 31 00:01:45,440 --> 00:01:47,080 Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I can I can actually 32 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:51,559 Speaker 1: deliver a personal commentary on that because my very first 33 00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:55,000 Speaker 1: machine was an Amiga one thousand. Many people have known 34 00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:58,000 Speaker 1: because I mentioned it several times in the podcast, and 35 00:01:58,320 --> 00:02:00,440 Speaker 1: that first machine that I had didn't have a hard 36 00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:04,840 Speaker 1: drive on it. Um So Commodore's instructions when you first 37 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:07,440 Speaker 1: turn the machine on, you would once it it got 38 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,280 Speaker 1: into boot up mode, you would see a copy of 39 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:14,399 Speaker 1: the Kickstart disc. Kickstart basically loaded the operating system uh 40 00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:18,480 Speaker 1: into RAM, into random access memory, and then once that happened, 41 00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:22,000 Speaker 1: you could launch your workbench, which is the equivalent of 42 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:24,800 Speaker 1: the desktop in what you would see in Windows Linux 43 00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:30,080 Speaker 1: or the mac os today. Um So, you know, without that, uh, 44 00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:32,079 Speaker 1: you know, when I got my first hard drive computer 45 00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:34,680 Speaker 1: which was an Amigia three thousand UM. It had a 46 00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:37,080 Speaker 1: forty megabyte. Yeah, you can laugh at that hard drive 47 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:42,320 Speaker 1: which would automatically load the kickstart and get everything started 48 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,040 Speaker 1: up for you. So it worked very much like our 49 00:02:45,080 --> 00:02:48,680 Speaker 1: machines do now. But um, you know that that was 50 00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:51,400 Speaker 1: That's one of those things that the hard drive takes 51 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:53,880 Speaker 1: care of that you didn't. That you don't have to 52 00:02:53,919 --> 00:02:56,920 Speaker 1: do uh now is load your operating system and all 53 00:02:56,960 --> 00:02:59,320 Speaker 1: that stuff in there. There's also it's also important to 54 00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:01,880 Speaker 1: note the difference between RAM and ROM. I would say 55 00:03:01,919 --> 00:03:05,720 Speaker 1: read only memory or rom UM also has a lot 56 00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:09,240 Speaker 1: of that baked into the chips onto your computer. There 57 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:11,840 Speaker 1: are some things that are already in your computer that 58 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:16,080 Speaker 1: are part of the uh um the physical hardware. But 59 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:20,040 Speaker 1: and and read only memory uh that memory is at 60 00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:23,840 Speaker 1: access sequentially rather than at random, which is how random 61 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:26,960 Speaker 1: access memory got its name, right, and read only memory, 62 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:31,440 Speaker 1: as the name implies, you can only read from that memory. 63 00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:34,800 Speaker 1: You can't write to it. So in other words, it's unchanging. 64 00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:38,360 Speaker 1: It is is static. It will always be the way 65 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:41,480 Speaker 1: it is unless you were to physically remove the chips 66 00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:45,520 Speaker 1: and replace them with other chips or other circuitry, it's 67 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:47,560 Speaker 1: always going to be the same way. And there's some 68 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:51,080 Speaker 1: devices that only have read only memory because that's all 69 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:54,280 Speaker 1: they require, and it's important to have. It's um it's 70 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,560 Speaker 1: a very useful type of memory. But when you're working 71 00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:01,640 Speaker 1: on a project, if you only have ROM and not RAM, 72 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:03,520 Speaker 1: you would have to burn a new ROM every time 73 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:05,560 Speaker 1: you wanted to save something. To this I would be 74 00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:08,200 Speaker 1: a real pain. So, for example, if you were to 75 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:13,200 Speaker 1: look at the good old video game console market, especially 76 00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:16,560 Speaker 1: if you were looking at the old cartridge based consoles, 77 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:21,760 Speaker 1: the the games, the cartridges you have that you would 78 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:26,160 Speaker 1: put plug into your console had ROMs on them. That 79 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:30,120 Speaker 1: was the game itself was a ROM. And that's why 80 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:34,039 Speaker 1: if you talk about things like the main emulator, and 81 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:36,360 Speaker 1: I know that's it's kind of like saying a t 82 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:40,919 Speaker 1: M machine, but the emulator for arcade machines UH that 83 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:44,760 Speaker 1: you can run on certain computers. The emulator's job is 84 00:04:44,839 --> 00:04:50,440 Speaker 1: to to mimic the circuitry that you would find within 85 00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:54,039 Speaker 1: an arcade machine to run a specific ROM or game. 86 00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:58,320 Speaker 1: So RAMS are used in devices, and in some cases 87 00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:02,680 Speaker 1: are are the only thing within that device. There might 88 00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:04,840 Speaker 1: be some other memory there to do things like keep 89 00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:06,840 Speaker 1: track of a high score. That's a little different. But 90 00:05:07,839 --> 00:05:11,400 Speaker 1: but in general, um, you know, there are certain devices 91 00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:14,200 Speaker 1: that will only have ROM. RAM, however, is very important 92 00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:17,320 Speaker 1: for the way we use computers today. Think of RAM 93 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:21,719 Speaker 1: as it's a it's a temporary storage fability, yeah, for 94 00:05:21,839 --> 00:05:24,760 Speaker 1: a computer. Right. So it's where you can temporarily store 95 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:29,919 Speaker 1: instructions and data so that your computers processor doesn't have 96 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:32,680 Speaker 1: to go hunting through your hard drive system in order 97 00:05:32,720 --> 00:05:37,360 Speaker 1: to find the relevant information to execute a command. Um. 98 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:40,120 Speaker 1: The way I like to think about this is if 99 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:43,839 Speaker 1: you're a student, imagine that you have a textbook filled 100 00:05:43,880 --> 00:05:47,320 Speaker 1: with facts, will say physics. It's a physics textbook, all right, 101 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:50,560 Speaker 1: And you've got a test coming up, and you've created 102 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:54,440 Speaker 1: a crib sheet for you to study from, and the 103 00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:57,480 Speaker 1: crib sheet has bulleted points on it about the major 104 00:05:57,560 --> 00:05:59,880 Speaker 1: things you're going to be covering in your next physics test. 105 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:02,279 Speaker 1: That crib sheet is kind of like RAM in the 106 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:04,960 Speaker 1: sense that you can make little notes, you can erase stuff, 107 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:09,240 Speaker 1: you can replace things, and it has a good instruction 108 00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:11,720 Speaker 1: set for you to work from. Now, occasionally you might 109 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:14,400 Speaker 1: come across a problem. Let's say you're working on some 110 00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:16,800 Speaker 1: homework that's going to prepare you for this test. And 111 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:18,839 Speaker 1: you've got your crib sheet in front of you, and 112 00:06:18,839 --> 00:06:21,880 Speaker 1: you're working on your homework question, and you realize that 113 00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:25,240 Speaker 1: the information that you need is not on the crib sheet. 114 00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:27,159 Speaker 1: It's just doesn't go that deep. So you have to 115 00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:30,160 Speaker 1: go to the textbook to refer to the right section 116 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:32,159 Speaker 1: to learn the stuff you need in order to answer 117 00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:35,360 Speaker 1: that question. That's kind of like your computer. Your CPU 118 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:38,120 Speaker 1: is going to refer back to the memory to see 119 00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:41,039 Speaker 1: if the information it needs is there, and if it's 120 00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:45,520 Speaker 1: if the information goes beyond that little memory, if it's 121 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:47,840 Speaker 1: something that has to actually access the hard drive, it 122 00:06:47,839 --> 00:06:51,560 Speaker 1: will go to the hard drive. Same sort of idea. Yeah, 123 00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:54,240 Speaker 1: And UM, I would just like to note that when 124 00:06:54,279 --> 00:06:58,080 Speaker 1: I said that ROM could only be access sequentially, that's wrong. 125 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:02,040 Speaker 1: I was actually thinking of serial access memory or SAM. Right. 126 00:07:02,160 --> 00:07:05,000 Speaker 1: I apologize for that. Yeah, I haven't had enough coffee 127 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:08,160 Speaker 1: this morning apparently, But yeah, serial access memory is UH 128 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,320 Speaker 1: is another form of memory that's not used nearly as 129 00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:15,280 Speaker 1: often today as it used to be. But back when 130 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:18,720 Speaker 1: we had tape drives, UM, you know, you used to 131 00:07:18,760 --> 00:07:20,960 Speaker 1: have to go all the way through the tape until 132 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:22,880 Speaker 1: you got to the part where it had the information 133 00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:25,920 Speaker 1: you needed letter than accessing it. It's just the same 134 00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:28,520 Speaker 1: as if he's had a cassette tape. Right. If you 135 00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:30,400 Speaker 1: had an old cassette tape with music on it and 136 00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:33,000 Speaker 1: you wanted to listen to a specific song, you had 137 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:36,760 Speaker 1: to fast forward or play through the tape until you 138 00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:39,120 Speaker 1: got to the song you wanted, and then you could 139 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:41,560 Speaker 1: listen to it. You couldn't just jump right to the song. 140 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:44,600 Speaker 1: For our younger listeners, this might seem like a completely 141 00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:48,360 Speaker 1: foreign concept, but yes, uh, lots of us used to 142 00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:51,760 Speaker 1: listen to cassette tapes and if you were really lucky, 143 00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:55,480 Speaker 1: you had like the eight track tapes where your options 144 00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:58,280 Speaker 1: were even more limited in order to to navigate to 145 00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:01,320 Speaker 1: the next song. Yes, but ROM doesn't necessarily work that way, 146 00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:04,720 Speaker 1: so I apologize for that. But random axis memory there, 147 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:06,920 Speaker 1: there's certain there are different kinds of it. One of 148 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:10,800 Speaker 1: the most common is dynamic RAM. Yeah, that's that's probably 149 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:16,080 Speaker 1: the most versions of that are probably the most common 150 00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:19,239 Speaker 1: used in computers today. Yeah, and uh, And the way 151 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:22,600 Speaker 1: that random axis memory, dynamic random access memory is is 152 00:08:23,080 --> 00:08:27,440 Speaker 1: arranged is that you can imagine a grid, right, and 153 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:31,200 Speaker 1: the columns there are columns, and there are rows, and 154 00:08:31,200 --> 00:08:36,839 Speaker 1: where these intersect you have memory cells. Now, a memory cell, 155 00:08:37,280 --> 00:08:41,280 Speaker 1: the most basic memory cell is essentially a transistor and 156 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:45,280 Speaker 1: a capacitor, and the capacitor can hold a charge. If 157 00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:47,520 Speaker 1: the capacitor is holding a charge, the memory cell is 158 00:08:47,559 --> 00:08:50,480 Speaker 1: registering as a one. If the capacitor is not holding 159 00:08:50,480 --> 00:08:54,120 Speaker 1: a charge, it's registering as a zero. The transistor access 160 00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:59,320 Speaker 1: a switch that allows the various things. It allows the 161 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:02,240 Speaker 1: computer to be a to read those particular cells and 162 00:09:02,280 --> 00:09:05,400 Speaker 1: also to recharge those cells. Because here's the thing about capacitors, 163 00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:09,480 Speaker 1: they do drain. Yeah, they can hold a charge. There. 164 00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:13,400 Speaker 1: They're sort of like a battery, though they are not identical, 165 00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:16,080 Speaker 1: so don't assume that that's the same thing, but there 166 00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:20,520 Speaker 1: they fulfill similar functions. Capacitors usually release their energy in 167 00:09:20,559 --> 00:09:25,520 Speaker 1: a burst as opposed to over a prolonged time. But yeah, 168 00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:28,040 Speaker 1: the capacitors the the energy drains from the capastors, so 169 00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:33,280 Speaker 1: they have to be recharged regularly and rapidly in order 170 00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:36,280 Speaker 1: for them to maintain that charge and hold onto what 171 00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:39,680 Speaker 1: we call a state, the state of that memory cell. 172 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:41,520 Speaker 1: So the state is either a one or a zero. 173 00:09:41,559 --> 00:09:44,360 Speaker 1: If it's a one, the computer has to continually send 174 00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:47,160 Speaker 1: energy to that UH cell in order for it to 175 00:09:47,200 --> 00:09:50,640 Speaker 1: maintain a one until the memory needs to be written over, 176 00:09:50,679 --> 00:09:52,719 Speaker 1: in which case it might be a one again or 177 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:54,440 Speaker 1: it might be a zero. It all depends on what 178 00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:57,640 Speaker 1: the information is. And you've got the like I said, 179 00:09:57,679 --> 00:10:01,760 Speaker 1: you've got columns and you've got rows, and uh, the 180 00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:04,040 Speaker 1: way the computer works, it has all these different little 181 00:10:04,120 --> 00:10:10,000 Speaker 1: UM components to it that will detect what the current 182 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:12,960 Speaker 1: state is of all those different memory cells in order 183 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:16,320 Speaker 1: to be able to uh to to pull the right information. 184 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:18,960 Speaker 1: And in fact, the computer keeps a record of which 185 00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:21,079 Speaker 1: memory you sell it needs to go to because you 186 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:23,280 Speaker 1: can think of the intersection of that column in that 187 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:26,120 Speaker 1: row as an address. Yeah, if you think about it 188 00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:29,800 Speaker 1: as a piece of graph paper. Yeah, kind of the 189 00:10:29,800 --> 00:10:33,360 Speaker 1: computer just basically keeps track of, uh, you know, where 190 00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:36,440 Speaker 1: each item is in that memory. Yeah. If you think 191 00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:38,959 Speaker 1: of the columns is like things like A, B, C, D, E, F. 192 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:41,280 Speaker 1: You know, sort of like think of it kind of 193 00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:44,160 Speaker 1: like a game of battleship. That's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah, 194 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:46,040 Speaker 1: you got that. You've got the columns that are maybe 195 00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:49,360 Speaker 1: A through Z, and then you have one through twenty 196 00:10:49,440 --> 00:10:51,880 Speaker 1: six as the rose and you want to look at 197 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:55,280 Speaker 1: a four, well, then you know exactly where to go 198 00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:58,080 Speaker 1: to to pull up that information. You don't have to 199 00:10:58,120 --> 00:11:00,400 Speaker 1: you don't have to go through the entire ce quence 200 00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:03,360 Speaker 1: of memory cells in order to get that information. That's 201 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:06,080 Speaker 1: a very simplistic way of saying what is happening with 202 00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:10,880 Speaker 1: this dynamic random access memory. One of the disadvantages here, though, 203 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:15,760 Speaker 1: is that having to refresh that memory constantly means that 204 00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:21,760 Speaker 1: you're essentially slowing down the memory. UM, which is you 205 00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:24,880 Speaker 1: know a problem. It's it's something that that requires a 206 00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:28,360 Speaker 1: lot of energy. It requires uh that you're constant constantly 207 00:11:28,400 --> 00:11:31,920 Speaker 1: refreshing it and slows down your memory. Now, um, having 208 00:11:31,960 --> 00:11:35,480 Speaker 1: more memory and your computer is a good thing. UM. 209 00:11:35,559 --> 00:11:37,880 Speaker 1: You remember when we talked about thirty two bit and 210 00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:42,240 Speaker 1: sixty four bit systems. Um. You know, your your operating 211 00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:45,440 Speaker 1: system and your computer, depending on how they work together, 212 00:11:45,559 --> 00:11:51,520 Speaker 1: can address a certain amount of computer memory. UM. And 213 00:11:51,679 --> 00:11:54,720 Speaker 1: uh you know with if you have if you are 214 00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:59,120 Speaker 1: not taking advantage of the maximum capacity of memory or 215 00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:01,160 Speaker 1: at least you know, the as much as your computer 216 00:12:01,240 --> 00:12:05,040 Speaker 1: can hold. UM. Not only is it having to uh 217 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:07,880 Speaker 1: fit whatever programs you're trying to run on top of 218 00:12:07,920 --> 00:12:10,920 Speaker 1: the operating system in that amount of memory, it's also 219 00:12:11,720 --> 00:12:15,040 Speaker 1: dealing with uh constantly having to refresh that memory, so 220 00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:18,160 Speaker 1: it can really slow your computer down. We're gonna take 221 00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:20,160 Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor, and then when 222 00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:30,440 Speaker 1: we come back more about RAM. Going back to the 223 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:35,520 Speaker 1: grid really quickly. The the columns along this grid are 224 00:12:35,559 --> 00:12:40,080 Speaker 1: called bit lines, the rows are called word lines, and 225 00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:43,319 Speaker 1: then the the intersection is the memory cell address. So, 226 00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:46,880 Speaker 1: UH though, what when you are WIN, when you want 227 00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:49,280 Speaker 1: to write information or when your computer needs to write 228 00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:52,000 Speaker 1: information to your RAM in order for the CPU to 229 00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:54,440 Speaker 1: be able to have access to it to make things 230 00:12:54,520 --> 00:13:01,440 Speaker 1: run smoothly. First it starts sending electricity through the column area, 231 00:13:02,040 --> 00:13:07,440 Speaker 1: so through the bitline UM individual bitline, and then the 232 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:13,640 Speaker 1: computer sends electricity through the appropriate wordlines the right rose. 233 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:16,720 Speaker 1: So let's say that you you know that you're you're 234 00:13:16,880 --> 00:13:20,439 Speaker 1: you're activating column D that's the one that's being UM 235 00:13:20,640 --> 00:13:23,640 Speaker 1: that electricity is running through right now. And you know 236 00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:29,360 Speaker 1: that Rose five, twelve, and twenty three need to have 237 00:13:29,679 --> 00:13:33,080 Speaker 1: need to be activated because those memories, the memory cells 238 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:37,319 Speaker 1: at those addresses at the intersection of column D UH 239 00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:39,840 Speaker 1: need to be active in order for the information to 240 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:43,199 Speaker 1: be there. The computer sends this information, the transistor allows 241 00:13:43,280 --> 00:13:48,720 Speaker 1: the capacity turns to take on that that charge. And 242 00:13:48,760 --> 00:13:55,079 Speaker 1: then there's a little um sensor actually since amplifier as well, 243 00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:59,840 Speaker 1: that receives the signal that says this capacitor has has 244 00:13:59,880 --> 00:14:03,040 Speaker 1: a state of one, and that's what allows the computer. No, 245 00:14:03,559 --> 00:14:05,719 Speaker 1: you know if it's a one or zero, and collectively 246 00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:09,280 Speaker 1: all those ones and zeros give it the information it needs. Now, 247 00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:13,000 Speaker 1: all of this happens in a manner of a few nanoseconds, 248 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:17,000 Speaker 1: So don't think like this is taking ages. It's it's 249 00:14:17,080 --> 00:14:20,640 Speaker 1: it's billions of a second for this stuff. When I 250 00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:22,920 Speaker 1: say slow, I would put that in quotes. It's slow, 251 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:27,160 Speaker 1: right slow, like the way we feel when we put 252 00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:29,720 Speaker 1: something in the microwave for a minute and we're thinking, 253 00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:32,800 Speaker 1: why isn't it done yet? That kind of slow slow 254 00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:36,240 Speaker 1: as relative. Yes, it's not slow as in you put 255 00:14:36,240 --> 00:14:39,000 Speaker 1: something in the oven and four days later you've got turkey. 256 00:14:39,120 --> 00:14:44,200 Speaker 1: Uh the I put an old boot in there. There's 257 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:48,280 Speaker 1: a turkey. That's the way it worked, isn't it. No? Oh, 258 00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:51,440 Speaker 1: I need to go home after this podcast, but at 259 00:14:51,520 --> 00:14:55,400 Speaker 1: least I'll have some warm boots Uh yeah, so this 260 00:14:55,400 --> 00:14:59,280 Speaker 1: this is all taking just nanoseconds for each individual transaction, 261 00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:03,520 Speaker 1: no seconds the whole thing. So, but it's happening repeatedly 262 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:06,280 Speaker 1: until that memory is getting rewritten, and it's happening. You know, 263 00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:10,720 Speaker 1: it's changing rapidly because that's the nature of memory. If 264 00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:13,520 Speaker 1: you're running a lot of different applications, and uh, your 265 00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:17,520 Speaker 1: memory might be filling up pretty quickly with all this information. 266 00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:21,040 Speaker 1: That's why the more applications you run, if you're if 267 00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:23,920 Speaker 1: you're using an older machine and you're running a lot 268 00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:26,880 Speaker 1: of different applications, you might feel like you're everything's kind 269 00:15:26,920 --> 00:15:30,680 Speaker 1: of sluggish. And that's why people will tell you like, oh, well, 270 00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:33,440 Speaker 1: you need to close some of these applications because it's 271 00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:35,560 Speaker 1: taking up space in the memory and the CPU is 272 00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:38,520 Speaker 1: having to work harder to get the information it needs 273 00:15:38,880 --> 00:15:43,360 Speaker 1: to act to execute your commands. So uh, you know 274 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:46,400 Speaker 1: that that's how that all plays in. That's why people say, oh, 275 00:15:46,520 --> 00:15:48,040 Speaker 1: if you want a computer to go faster, you need 276 00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:50,720 Speaker 1: more memory, because then you can you can actually run 277 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,640 Speaker 1: more applications. That tends to be a very common problem 278 00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:56,560 Speaker 1: that people run into, right They're like, my computer is 279 00:15:56,560 --> 00:15:58,560 Speaker 1: so slow, and you look at it and you're like, well, 280 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:01,560 Speaker 1: you've got fifteen applications open, and three of them are 281 00:16:01,560 --> 00:16:05,160 Speaker 1: pretty heavy duty, um, you know, or graphics intensive or whatever, 282 00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:08,960 Speaker 1: something that's going to require a lot of processing. That 283 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,240 Speaker 1: would be why it's both processor speed and the amount 284 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:14,640 Speaker 1: of memory you have. The two are very much important. 285 00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:18,520 Speaker 1: And also when we talk about Moore's law, Moore's law 286 00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:23,440 Speaker 1: plays into the into memory as well, because dynamic random 287 00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:26,200 Speaker 1: access memory the nice thing about it is that, well 288 00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:29,560 Speaker 1: two nice things about is that it's relatively inexpensive, and 289 00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:32,560 Speaker 1: it's it doesn't take up a lot of physical space 290 00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:36,240 Speaker 1: when you're designing memory chips. There are other types of 291 00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:40,280 Speaker 1: random access memory, not just dynamic their static random access memory. 292 00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:45,240 Speaker 1: And static random access memory uses uh something a logic 293 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:49,320 Speaker 1: construction called a flip flop. Yes, not a standal I 294 00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:52,640 Speaker 1: was gonna say, you're gonna oven and it comes out 295 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:57,120 Speaker 1: as chicken already know that doesn't work. Well, the static 296 00:16:57,320 --> 00:17:01,520 Speaker 1: random access memory, Um yeah, I mean it one of 297 00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:05,000 Speaker 1: the benefits of us now flip flops. Actually we uh 298 00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:09,280 Speaker 1: you go back to the Boolean logic um reference. But 299 00:17:10,119 --> 00:17:15,919 Speaker 1: basically a static RAM has the benefit of being a 300 00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:19,520 Speaker 1: lot faster than dynamic RAM. Well, for one thing, what 301 00:17:19,640 --> 00:17:22,200 Speaker 1: it does. Once it has a state, it will hold 302 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:24,439 Speaker 1: that state until you tell it to change. So it 303 00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:28,600 Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't, it doesn't require to be recharged, doesn't 304 00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:32,560 Speaker 1: have a capacitor that is leaking energy and has to 305 00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:36,159 Speaker 1: be refilled. So so once you once you set a 306 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:38,040 Speaker 1: flip flop to one, it's going to stay a one 307 00:17:38,080 --> 00:17:40,720 Speaker 1: till you tell it to be a zero. So that 308 00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:43,680 Speaker 1: sounds great. Why don't we use static RAM instead of 309 00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:47,040 Speaker 1: dynamic RAM for our you know, main RAM in our computers? 310 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,320 Speaker 1: Two reasons. One, it takes up more space, so you 311 00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:53,520 Speaker 1: end up having problems like especially with things like mobile 312 00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:57,520 Speaker 1: devices or or laptop computers, you start running into the 313 00:17:57,520 --> 00:17:59,680 Speaker 1: problem of while you can only fit so much into 314 00:17:59,680 --> 00:18:02,239 Speaker 1: a four in factor before he gets clunky, right right, 315 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:05,360 Speaker 1: you need more transistors for static RAM. Yeah, yeah, four 316 00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:08,400 Speaker 1: to six for each flip flop. So that's and each 317 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:13,439 Speaker 1: flip flop is is representing one memory cell. So and 318 00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:16,719 Speaker 1: granted these transistors that we're talking about are on the 319 00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:20,200 Speaker 1: nanoscale at this point, you know, we're talking about tiny, tiny, 320 00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:23,000 Speaker 1: tiny transistors. But even so those add up if you 321 00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:25,520 Speaker 1: need to have the amount of memory that you're accustomed to, 322 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:28,680 Speaker 1: so they are they take up more space, and they're 323 00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:32,400 Speaker 1: more much more expensive. So static RAM is not something 324 00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:35,600 Speaker 1: you're gonna find in every single kind of device, although 325 00:18:36,240 --> 00:18:39,359 Speaker 1: as you know, as the technologies improved, those prices do 326 00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:41,760 Speaker 1: tend to go down, so we do see more and 327 00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:44,159 Speaker 1: more of that, but dynamic RAM is still probably I 328 00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:47,560 Speaker 1: would say the most popular by far. Um. There there's 329 00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:54,000 Speaker 1: another potential change coming up, a new development that could 330 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:56,760 Speaker 1: really uh impact this, which we can get into in 331 00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,400 Speaker 1: a little bit. Okay, Yeah, I was gonna mention too though, 332 00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:02,040 Speaker 1: that that's attic RAM can be found in your computer, 333 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:07,920 Speaker 1: probably because um, if you've seen a list of computer specifications, 334 00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:10,320 Speaker 1: perhaps when you're shopping for a new machine and you 335 00:19:10,359 --> 00:19:14,320 Speaker 1: see the cash referred to, um, your computer's cash is 336 00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:18,760 Speaker 1: uh probably static ram. Yeah. A lot of CPUs have 337 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:22,439 Speaker 1: this built in, uh, A lot of the ones that 338 00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:27,560 Speaker 1: use multi threading, that have multi core processors. A lot 339 00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:31,879 Speaker 1: of these CPUs have their own sections of memory built 340 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:34,560 Speaker 1: And it's not it's not your computer's RAM. It's something 341 00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:37,760 Speaker 1: that's specifically part of the CPU chip set that is 342 00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:42,720 Speaker 1: there to help make make those those data transfers even 343 00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:46,560 Speaker 1: faster so that it makes it very efficient and for 344 00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:52,120 Speaker 1: the the most commonly used commands, uh, those would be 345 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:57,639 Speaker 1: stored within the cash. So in that crib sheet example 346 00:19:57,720 --> 00:20:00,000 Speaker 1: I gave, let's say that you even had a little 347 00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:03,119 Speaker 1: note card next year, a crib sheet that had the 348 00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:06,159 Speaker 1: four formulas you're going to use them most frequently in 349 00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:10,080 Speaker 1: that physics test, and so you've got those there. Because 350 00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:12,560 Speaker 1: this way, no matter what you know, you just have 351 00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:15,080 Speaker 1: to glance at the at the note card like that's 352 00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:17,000 Speaker 1: that's the formula I need, and you plug it in 353 00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:19,440 Speaker 1: and you make it, you make it work and whatever. 354 00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:23,240 Speaker 1: The problem is. Your CPU is really really good at 355 00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:28,480 Speaker 1: executing operations upon data, but it's stupid in the sense 356 00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:30,320 Speaker 1: that as soon as it's as soon as it's finished 357 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:33,080 Speaker 1: doing that, it's forgotten. There's no Yeah, it has no 358 00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:36,639 Speaker 1: memory of its own other than this this cash that 359 00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:39,879 Speaker 1: we're talking about. A CPU on its the very basic 360 00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:44,080 Speaker 1: CPU has no memory, so it can do stuff, but 361 00:20:44,119 --> 00:20:46,199 Speaker 1: as soon as the task is done, it's like a 362 00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:50,160 Speaker 1: blank slate all over again. That's that's why we have 363 00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:53,520 Speaker 1: to have memory in order to get this to work. 364 00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:57,200 Speaker 1: If if the CPU could somehow remember on its own, 365 00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:00,359 Speaker 1: then you'd have other issues like well, now needed to 366 00:21:00,359 --> 00:21:03,280 Speaker 1: do something new, So how do you write over what 367 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:06,000 Speaker 1: you had before? Do you just add to it? If 368 00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:08,400 Speaker 1: you add to it, how long until you reach capacity? 369 00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:10,320 Speaker 1: And you can't do anything with that CPU other than 370 00:21:10,359 --> 00:21:13,040 Speaker 1: the stuff that you've already done. So you know, this 371 00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:16,320 Speaker 1: is why the whole idea of the random actis memory 372 00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:19,560 Speaker 1: that could be rewritten very quickly was so important because 373 00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:23,840 Speaker 1: otherwise you limit the functions that your computer is capable 374 00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:27,000 Speaker 1: of doing. You know, this computer is great at adding 375 00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:30,480 Speaker 1: and subtracting and dividing, and after that you can't do 376 00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:34,240 Speaker 1: anything else because that's I was about to install Pacman, 377 00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:38,480 Speaker 1: but darn it, I already took up all of its 378 00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:41,560 Speaker 1: space with these three functions. Well, yeah, so you've got 379 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,600 Speaker 1: and and we're we're sort of filling out the whole computer. 380 00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:47,680 Speaker 1: So you've got your your CPU, and you've got a 381 00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:50,280 Speaker 1: cash to help it remember stuff that it needs to 382 00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:54,359 Speaker 1: do basic operations, right, and then you've got your your memory, 383 00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:57,760 Speaker 1: your RAM, your dynamic RAM that that's over here managing 384 00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:00,600 Speaker 1: the stuff that you've got going on, your word pressing, 385 00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:06,960 Speaker 1: your word uh processor uh stuff, and your your graphics program, 386 00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:09,760 Speaker 1: the stuff that you have brows your browser, your your 387 00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:14,200 Speaker 1: email program. But you also have UH in your modern computer, 388 00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:17,240 Speaker 1: you've got your graphics processor chip. And in a lot 389 00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:20,880 Speaker 1: of cases, UM, and I'm just hedging my bets here 390 00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:23,080 Speaker 1: that somebody has some weird computer that doesn't have this 391 00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:27,320 Speaker 1: also has its own RAM UM to help it pro 392 00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:32,119 Speaker 1: specifically process graphics. UM. So that RAM in general is 393 00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:35,480 Speaker 1: off limits to the rest of the machine because it's 394 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:38,480 Speaker 1: saying no, no, no no. This memory is specifically to 395 00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:41,720 Speaker 1: help us render graphics on the screen so that the 396 00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:46,000 Speaker 1: user can UH see everything that he or she wants 397 00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:50,080 Speaker 1: to see from the other programs. So it's not handling programs, 398 00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:53,280 Speaker 1: it's handling graphics. We have we have seen some processors 399 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:57,520 Speaker 1: recently that are able to tap into the graphics processing 400 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,480 Speaker 1: units as well and be able to to utilize those 401 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:06,800 Speaker 1: two process particularly difficult problems or powerful, you know, time 402 00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:10,120 Speaker 1: consuming problems to try and reduce the amount of time 403 00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:15,280 Speaker 1: it takes to get through that application. So and in fact, 404 00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:19,280 Speaker 1: we're seeing we're seeing both sides, right. We're seeing UH 405 00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:25,520 Speaker 1: CPU manufacturers get into adding in elements that specifically tackle 406 00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:31,480 Speaker 1: graphics processing, and we've seen graphics processing unit manufacturers get 407 00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:38,320 Speaker 1: into handling more basic processing UH functions. So the two 408 00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:42,040 Speaker 1: worlds have been colliding for probably less well for for 409 00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:44,879 Speaker 1: quite a quite a while, but really visibly for the 410 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:48,040 Speaker 1: last two years. Yeah, I'm thinking specifically of Apple's Grand 411 00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:51,440 Speaker 1: Central Technology, one of those things in snow Leopard that 412 00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,000 Speaker 1: people didn't really care about, but it was actually supposed 413 00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,760 Speaker 1: to improve the operating system, but it was mainly thinking 414 00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,159 Speaker 1: of Intel Sandy Bridge, which had its own graphics processing 415 00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,679 Speaker 1: element added into it. And the thing is that, uh 416 00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:07,399 Speaker 1: so that so the rule that we were just talking 417 00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,040 Speaker 1: about is is going to be shifting as time goes on, 418 00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:16,199 Speaker 1: and uh processor manufacturers of all kinds are more sophisticated, 419 00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,360 Speaker 1: the operating systems become more sophisticated and able to take 420 00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,159 Speaker 1: advantage of these changes. Um. But that's kind of the 421 00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:24,639 Speaker 1: way it works out. And I just wanted to illustrate 422 00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:27,800 Speaker 1: the fact that RAM can be used to support a 423 00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,600 Speaker 1: number of computer functions. You'll also see it in you know, 424 00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:36,200 Speaker 1: all kinds of other devices that use memory. Cameras, um cars, 425 00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:41,800 Speaker 1: all kinds of technologies that use computer processing that you 426 00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,240 Speaker 1: may or may not necessarily think of as of having 427 00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,760 Speaker 1: computers inside, but you know they have some form of 428 00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:49,719 Speaker 1: RAM in there. Chris and I have a little bit 429 00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,199 Speaker 1: more to say about random access memory, but before we 430 00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:54,640 Speaker 1: get to that, let's take another quick break to thank 431 00:24:54,680 --> 00:25:05,600 Speaker 1: our sponsor. Now, of course RAM has gotten more sophisticated 432 00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,119 Speaker 1: itself over time too. And you do you want to 433 00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,399 Speaker 1: talk about, uh, some of the older types or do 434 00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,480 Speaker 1: you want to talk about the improvements you were just 435 00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:16,919 Speaker 1: about to mention? Well, um, I have something leading up 436 00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,280 Speaker 1: into the improvements. If you have, if you have information 437 00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:22,000 Speaker 1: about older types of memory, I'm more than happy to 438 00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:25,119 Speaker 1: hear it. I personally did not research that, so I 439 00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:28,600 Speaker 1: have none of that information in front of me. Okay, alright, well, um, 440 00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,159 Speaker 1: I have some of it. And really this could probably 441 00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,440 Speaker 1: get kind of dry, um, but basically, you know, as 442 00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:37,040 Speaker 1: as time has gone on, you've been able to see 443 00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:40,560 Speaker 1: you were talking about Moore's law, which of course says 444 00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:44,440 Speaker 1: that the number of transistors on a processor chip will 445 00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:50,000 Speaker 1: double in Well, originally it was two years, now in 446 00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:53,320 Speaker 1: half or wait, I'm sorry, that's backwards. If Yeah, it 447 00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:56,399 Speaker 1: tends to go back and forth. Between twelve months to 448 00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,720 Speaker 1: twenty four months and eighteen to twenty four tends to 449 00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:03,760 Speaker 1: be the most frequently cited figures. So depending on any 450 00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,879 Speaker 1: given year, you'll hear. Oh, well, it's one of the 451 00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:10,919 Speaker 1: things that the Moore's law gets gets validated in retrospect, right, 452 00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,359 Speaker 1: because you have to look back two years ago and 453 00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,560 Speaker 1: look and see how many transistors were found on a CPU, 454 00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,000 Speaker 1: or like we're staying here, a memory circuit. That also 455 00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,280 Speaker 1: can apply. If you can fit twice as many transistors 456 00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,600 Speaker 1: on the memory circuit, then that's another example of Moore's 457 00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:32,560 Speaker 1: law holding true. M Um. But yeah, basically, as far 458 00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:38,760 Speaker 1: as the memory chips have gone, there's been a wave 459 00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,840 Speaker 1: of advances over the last couple of decades in which 460 00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,159 Speaker 1: more and more processors are are added. The way that 461 00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:48,360 Speaker 1: their accesses has changed. I remember with my Amiga three 462 00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,840 Speaker 1: thousand they used a very unusual type of memory called zips, 463 00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:54,280 Speaker 1: in which the pins that you use to plug them 464 00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,560 Speaker 1: in were basically a zig zag. There was a pin 465 00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:59,200 Speaker 1: on one side, then there was one on the other side, 466 00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:00,600 Speaker 1: there was one on the other side, you know, and 467 00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,200 Speaker 1: flipped back and forth between them. Only a very few 468 00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,159 Speaker 1: computers used that type of technology. UM. When I got 469 00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:10,639 Speaker 1: a Mac it used sims UM, which is a single 470 00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:13,600 Speaker 1: inline memory module. UM. You can actually find quite a 471 00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,720 Speaker 1: bit about the different types of memory on We referred 472 00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,000 Speaker 1: to it in our how ram works article on how 473 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,960 Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. But it's on Kingston's website and 474 00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,760 Speaker 1: it's UM. You know. It talks about the different types. 475 00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:28,439 Speaker 1: But the single inline modules were an improvement over that 476 00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:30,320 Speaker 1: the older technology, and then they came out with the 477 00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:34,720 Speaker 1: dual inline memory modules UM, and they basically it's a 478 00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,240 Speaker 1: little itty bitty card. UM. It's long, UM, but it 479 00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,800 Speaker 1: has a series of chips soldered into it. UM and 480 00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,320 Speaker 1: those are the memory chips, right. And the old days 481 00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,800 Speaker 1: you actually had to install a memory chip directly into 482 00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,840 Speaker 1: the motherboard. Yeah, this is the this sort of predates 483 00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,919 Speaker 1: the more i would say, the nineties and two thousands computers. 484 00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,640 Speaker 1: This is like the eighties and the old four right. 485 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:00,199 Speaker 1: So if you want to upgrade your comp it or 486 00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,320 Speaker 1: it actually meant opening up your computer, man, disconnecting the 487 00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,879 Speaker 1: motherboard and then possibly um, depending on how the memory 488 00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,360 Speaker 1: chip was designed, you might even have to do some soldering. 489 00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,000 Speaker 1: But but get you know, install a new memory chip 490 00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:19,160 Speaker 1: so that your computer would have more memory eventually. Improvements included, uh, 491 00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:24,440 Speaker 1: designing something called a memory bank where you had a 492 00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,919 Speaker 1: port essentially that you could plug in a card that 493 00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:32,000 Speaker 1: had a certain number of memory chips of a certain capacity, 494 00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:37,160 Speaker 1: and then as technology improved, you could replace that card 495 00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,440 Speaker 1: with a card that had a greater capacity. Now, keep 496 00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:45,040 Speaker 1: in mind that your computer CPU would determine how much 497 00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,880 Speaker 1: memory your computer could actually use. There would you would 498 00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,960 Speaker 1: reach a point where it wouldn't matter if you could 499 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,400 Speaker 1: buy a card with more memory, your CPU wouldn't be 500 00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,440 Speaker 1: able to access it, and had had limitation on that. 501 00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,360 Speaker 1: So there were you know you that's why if you 502 00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:03,080 Speaker 1: were to look at computer specs and see like, you know, 503 00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,200 Speaker 1: upgradeable up to whatever, that's the reason why is that 504 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,840 Speaker 1: the CPU itself has that limitation and so um you 505 00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,520 Speaker 1: know something, you know, the in America at least, we 506 00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:17,640 Speaker 1: have this philosophy of more is better, But there's a 507 00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:21,120 Speaker 1: certain point where, depending on the machine you're using, more 508 00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,320 Speaker 1: isn't going to do you any good because your computer 509 00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,840 Speaker 1: simply cannot use it. Yeah, and that's actually sort of 510 00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:31,320 Speaker 1: the source of Jonathan's earlier quote. UM, I mean, just 511 00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,160 Speaker 1: the idea behind it is that you know, there's only 512 00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,640 Speaker 1: so much you can use. Um. DEM's actually had chips 513 00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,480 Speaker 1: on both sides of that uh circuit board, and we're 514 00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:46,040 Speaker 1: able to handle more memory and more quickly. And you know, 515 00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,920 Speaker 1: from there we've moved UM move forward. I won't get 516 00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:52,400 Speaker 1: into to all of it, but we really got into 517 00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,920 Speaker 1: the more advanced types of memory and the two thousands 518 00:29:55,960 --> 00:30:02,320 Speaker 1: when we got into UM UH, the UM dynamic RAM 519 00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,720 Speaker 1: and that that made things a lot more And basically 520 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,800 Speaker 1: what they've done is, over the period of time, made 521 00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:13,000 Speaker 1: the transfer of information more efficient. They've increased the number 522 00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:16,000 Speaker 1: of transistors and the amount of information that could be 523 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,680 Speaker 1: stored on a single UH card with the RAM in it. 524 00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:24,000 Speaker 1: And it's just it's just done. Some made some insignificant 525 00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:28,640 Speaker 1: improvements over the past few years. Right. And and memory 526 00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:33,160 Speaker 1: relies on something called a memory controller. Yes, that's part 527 00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:37,120 Speaker 1: of what maintains like it determines UH when to write 528 00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,840 Speaker 1: two memory cells. It also helps read the memory cells 529 00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,560 Speaker 1: that it's it's kind of like a manager, right. But 530 00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:46,600 Speaker 1: it also has to check the memory whenever it's getting 531 00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,680 Speaker 1: information back from memory, has to check it for errors. 532 00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:53,640 Speaker 1: And depending on what kind of system you're using, you 533 00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,120 Speaker 1: might have a memory chip with just with a built 534 00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:01,280 Speaker 1: in error checking technology which is called a parody check. Yes, 535 00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:05,080 Speaker 1: so checking for parody to make sure that the information 536 00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,880 Speaker 1: it's it's delivering is accurate. Uh. Um. There are a 537 00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,520 Speaker 1: lot of different ways of doing this, but um one 538 00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:16,840 Speaker 1: is so we talked about information in in the computer 539 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,400 Speaker 1: world in terms of bits and bytes, right, and a 540 00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:25,880 Speaker 1: bite is eight bits, which kind of represent a unit 541 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:30,520 Speaker 1: of information, of useful information, because each bit is itself 542 00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:32,360 Speaker 1: a unit of information, but in order for it to 543 00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,440 Speaker 1: be useful for a computer, we we group them in 544 00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:39,000 Speaker 1: groups of eight uh. Standard. Now, though it wasn't when 545 00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:43,800 Speaker 1: computers first were developed, there were several different competing UM. 546 00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:45,920 Speaker 1: I guess you could calm standards because they were standard 547 00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,920 Speaker 1: amongst a certain group of computers. But we kind of 548 00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:51,719 Speaker 1: selled on this whole eight bit is a byte model, 549 00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:56,239 Speaker 1: and with parody they there's an extra bit added on 550 00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:01,719 Speaker 1: to the end. And uh that bit is it's kind 551 00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,880 Speaker 1: of a marker, right, Yeah, it's basically used for error checking. Yeah. 552 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:10,719 Speaker 1: So if if the uh, for example, it looks at 553 00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,680 Speaker 1: how many of the bits within that bite are ones 554 00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:18,280 Speaker 1: versus zeros. So if all of the if there are 555 00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:21,800 Speaker 1: an odd number of ones in that byte, remember it's 556 00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,000 Speaker 1: eight bits, there's an odd number, the parody bit is 557 00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:27,680 Speaker 1: set to one. If it's an even number, the parody 558 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:31,040 Speaker 1: bit is set to zero. So then when the data 559 00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:35,480 Speaker 1: is being processed, the totals added up again and it's 560 00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:41,360 Speaker 1: checked against the parody bit. Now, if that matches, the 561 00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,160 Speaker 1: assumption is that the that byte is correct, it's accurate, 562 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:49,760 Speaker 1: and everything's cool. If it comes up as a conflict, 563 00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,920 Speaker 1: then that's a message to say, dump this information because 564 00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,960 Speaker 1: something has gone wrong. Now, the parody bit does not 565 00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,320 Speaker 1: tell you what the information is. It just is a 566 00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,160 Speaker 1: shorthand way of saying, all right, are there an even 567 00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:05,640 Speaker 1: number of ones in this byte? Yes, well, then something's 568 00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,160 Speaker 1: gone wrong. It doesn't tell you what the information is 569 00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:11,640 Speaker 1: or why it's wrong. It just says that's not what 570 00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:16,360 Speaker 1: I got when I added it up, right, So uh. 571 00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:19,160 Speaker 1: And then there's that that's called even parody. That's that 572 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,640 Speaker 1: particular model. That's just one way of doing it. There's 573 00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:23,720 Speaker 1: also odd parody, which is kind of the same idea, 574 00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:26,040 Speaker 1: except you know, if it's an odd number of ones, 575 00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,120 Speaker 1: then it's considered a zero. If it's an even number 576 00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:33,120 Speaker 1: of ones, it's considered a one. But uh. There's also 577 00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:39,320 Speaker 1: the error correction code method, which goes a little bit further. 578 00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:41,560 Speaker 1: This is this is so you've got parody that tells 579 00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:44,520 Speaker 1: you there's a problem error correction is to try and 580 00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,160 Speaker 1: step in when there's a problem and fix it. Um. 581 00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:51,480 Speaker 1: It uses additional bits to monitor the information that the 582 00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:55,520 Speaker 1: actual information that's in the byte. So um, it's looking 583 00:33:55,600 --> 00:34:01,360 Speaker 1: at the information itself, not just a summer um. And 584 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:06,040 Speaker 1: it uses pretty complicated algorithms to try and head off 585 00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:10,040 Speaker 1: any problems. So there, you know, this has to be 586 00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,600 Speaker 1: built in because occasionally things go wrong. Sometimes something doesn't 587 00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,760 Speaker 1: trip when it's supposed to trip, and uh, your CPU 588 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,680 Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily know that you. CPU is just working on 589 00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,560 Speaker 1: what's given to it. So again, since the CPU can't 590 00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,160 Speaker 1: remember what it did last in its last nanosecond, it's 591 00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,840 Speaker 1: just saying, all right, I gotta execute this particular operation 592 00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:35,080 Speaker 1: against this particular set of information. It doesn't know or 593 00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:39,520 Speaker 1: care if it's the correct operation or information set. So 594 00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,600 Speaker 1: you have to have that error correction in there. In 595 00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:47,680 Speaker 1: some places, it's not always in the memory controller chip. 596 00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,720 Speaker 1: Sometimes it's part of the CPU. It's it all depends 597 00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:55,359 Speaker 1: on the architecture of the computer system itself. Yeah. Now, um, 598 00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,880 Speaker 1: it's also important to note um uh that as my 599 00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,400 Speaker 1: uh improvements have changed, the way of of doing this 600 00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:08,160 Speaker 1: has changed, and of course that probably the the type 601 00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:09,759 Speaker 1: of RAM that you have in your computer, if you've 602 00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,239 Speaker 1: got a more recent uh computer, is the aversion of 603 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:17,319 Speaker 1: the double data rate synchronous d RAM dynamic RAM or 604 00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:20,480 Speaker 1: U d d R and you know d d R 605 00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,840 Speaker 1: two d d R three um s d RAM. But 606 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,480 Speaker 1: that's uh, you know, that's changing. As you were saying, 607 00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,600 Speaker 1: their improvements being made. I know. One of the types 608 00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:32,239 Speaker 1: of memory that people have been talking about is magnetic RAM, 609 00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:35,200 Speaker 1: which is supposed to basically give you an instant on 610 00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,640 Speaker 1: uh situation when you turn your computer on, because uh, 611 00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,040 Speaker 1: it can store the information and pull it up immediately 612 00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:43,560 Speaker 1: and you don't have to worry about a long boot 613 00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:49,080 Speaker 1: up sequences. The RAM is getting uh populated with information, right. Yeah. 614 00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,359 Speaker 1: The idea here is to have something, some sort of 615 00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:56,920 Speaker 1: system in place that can maintain a state without the 616 00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:01,040 Speaker 1: need for uh the electrical impulse to go through and 617 00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:06,439 Speaker 1: boot it up. Right. So another potential solution, although this 618 00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:11,839 Speaker 1: is one that is still being developed, is the memorister. Yes, memoristers, 619 00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,640 Speaker 1: and these are interesting things. Uh, it's kind of difficult, 620 00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:19,400 Speaker 1: it's really complicated to to get into detail. But in 621 00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:25,759 Speaker 1: from a bird's eye perspective, a memorister is an electrical 622 00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,880 Speaker 1: component all right, And if you run current through a 623 00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:35,400 Speaker 1: memorister in one direction, the electrical resistance increases. If you 624 00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:40,279 Speaker 1: run current through the opposite way, the resistance decreases. Now 625 00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:46,840 Speaker 1: once the current stops moving through, the memorister holds onto 626 00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:49,400 Speaker 1: whatever the last resistance was. So if you ran it 627 00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,640 Speaker 1: through the first way, then the resistance has been stays 628 00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,839 Speaker 1: at its increased level. If you if you last ran 629 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,000 Speaker 1: it through the opposite way, then it's going to be 630 00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,919 Speaker 1: at its decreased level. That that's a two bit system, right. 631 00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,400 Speaker 1: You could assign one of those of one and the 632 00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,680 Speaker 1: other one of zero and once you ran through that 633 00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:11,880 Speaker 1: once uh, it would make it would hold on to 634 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,200 Speaker 1: that information. And it takes up much less space than 635 00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:23,040 Speaker 1: the typical memory transistors do, so it's smaller and it 636 00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:27,080 Speaker 1: will hold on to whatever the state is until you 637 00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,120 Speaker 1: tell it that you know you want to change by 638 00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,520 Speaker 1: by and you tell it by running the electricity through 639 00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:36,239 Speaker 1: it one way or versus the other. The computer have 640 00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:38,799 Speaker 1: to remain plugged in for this to work. No, once 641 00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:42,080 Speaker 1: you've once you've done it, once you've run the current through, 642 00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:46,120 Speaker 1: you can turn the current off and the memorister retains 643 00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:50,000 Speaker 1: that resistance. So the only thing that has to happen 644 00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:52,319 Speaker 1: is the computer has to be able to detect what 645 00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:56,000 Speaker 1: the resistance is of that memorister. So once it detects 646 00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,799 Speaker 1: what the state is, then you've got that information already there. 647 00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,640 Speaker 1: So it could be used in various kinds of processors 648 00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:05,359 Speaker 1: as well as memory. And because it's smaller, you could 649 00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:09,800 Speaker 1: at least potentially cram far more memory into a smaller 650 00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:14,520 Speaker 1: space than what is capable using right now through transistors. 651 00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,759 Speaker 1: So this is this is a potential way to keep 652 00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:21,960 Speaker 1: Moore's law going. In fact, if the developments were to 653 00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:25,400 Speaker 1: progress at a at a good clip, we could almost 654 00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:29,879 Speaker 1: leap frog quite a bit because the potential is that 655 00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:34,920 Speaker 1: it would revolutionize UH processing and memory all in a 656 00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:39,279 Speaker 1: in a a fell swoop, a swell fhoop. Yeah. Now 657 00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:41,719 Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the board would agree. I'm sure 658 00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:47,319 Speaker 1: that they say that anything involving resistance, yeah, but yeah, 659 00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:52,400 Speaker 1: it's it's an interesting idea and it's something that's was 660 00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:57,359 Speaker 1: first proposed back in nineteen one, and UH and HP 661 00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:01,399 Speaker 1: Labs has been working on it diligently. UM and in fact, 662 00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:03,640 Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight announced that it was developing 663 00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:09,080 Speaker 1: switching mem risters. So these are these are the sort 664 00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,839 Speaker 1: of technologies that I think are going to become far 665 00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:15,759 Speaker 1: more important in the near future because again we've talked 666 00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:18,239 Speaker 1: about this before about how the world is moving to 667 00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:22,720 Speaker 1: mobile devices literally in some cases, but the mobile devices 668 00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,640 Speaker 1: are becoming increasingly important. Well, with a mobile device, you 669 00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,040 Speaker 1: have a much more limited amount of space that you 670 00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,239 Speaker 1: have to work within, and so something like a mem rister, 671 00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,359 Speaker 1: which could at least at least in theory, pack much 672 00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,680 Speaker 1: larger punch and a much smaller package. It could create 673 00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:44,480 Speaker 1: the super super duper smartphones that we all want. Super 674 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:49,880 Speaker 1: smartphones are already on the horizon. Okay, well I have 675 00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:54,760 Speaker 1: secret identities too. Yeah. So so RAM is pretty ubiquitous. 676 00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:58,480 Speaker 1: I mean, it's in just about anything that that computes UM. 677 00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:02,280 Speaker 1: And you know, the technolog G has been fairly standard 678 00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:06,800 Speaker 1: for several years now, um, you know, with minor improvements 679 00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,200 Speaker 1: over the past decade or so, but you know, with 680 00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:16,480 Speaker 1: with UH computer scientists working on improvements UH completely different technologies, 681 00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,239 Speaker 1: hopefully they'll be able to improve that because it's it's 682 00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:23,359 Speaker 1: critical to basically any type of computing that you want 683 00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:28,280 Speaker 1: or need to do. UM. So it's uh, it's very basic. 684 00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:31,040 Speaker 1: I'm glad we we looked at it because it's, uh, 685 00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:34,799 Speaker 1: it's vastly important to our our daily world these days. 686 00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:38,200 Speaker 1: It's definitely one of the basic building blocks of of 687 00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:40,560 Speaker 1: the computing age. I mean, you know, you talk about 688 00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:44,839 Speaker 1: it's not as it's not as basic as say a transistor, right, 689 00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:46,520 Speaker 1: it's like a level up, so it's kind of on 690 00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:49,759 Speaker 1: the molecule scale as opposed to the atomic scale. Right, 691 00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:53,240 Speaker 1: it relies on transistors, yea, So it's it's a little 692 00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:56,080 Speaker 1: more complex than just the basic basic building blocks. But 693 00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:59,640 Speaker 1: without it, computing would not be nearly as useful as 694 00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:03,080 Speaker 1: it is because it would take far more time to 695 00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,960 Speaker 1: process operations. And even again, even if you have the 696 00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:11,520 Speaker 1: fastest CPU, if it can't access memory, then all it's 697 00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,000 Speaker 1: going to do is just be very quick when it 698 00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,800 Speaker 1: needs to to find information on the hard drive, and 699 00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,759 Speaker 1: then it's all dependent upon how fast the hard drive 700 00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,440 Speaker 1: can deliver the information to the CPU. The memory allows 701 00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:27,520 Speaker 1: the CPU to skip that step and it just makes 702 00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:32,160 Speaker 1: things much faster. Now, another potential memrister thing I should 703 00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,399 Speaker 1: say is that if you designed a hard drive out 704 00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:39,439 Speaker 1: of memristers, you could in theory have your hard drive 705 00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,839 Speaker 1: act as memory, it would be it would it could, 706 00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:46,000 Speaker 1: in theory behave in a very similar fashion, which means 707 00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:50,759 Speaker 1: you could potentially just incorporate RAM directly as part of 708 00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:52,880 Speaker 1: what the hard drive does, and then you wouldn't need 709 00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,000 Speaker 1: RAM anymore, which also means that you could load stuff 710 00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:58,920 Speaker 1: up at at a in the blink of an eye 711 00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,759 Speaker 1: and it would be phenomen at all. Uh. Again, that's 712 00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:05,640 Speaker 1: a potential that we may come to see one day. 713 00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:08,200 Speaker 1: It's not something that you're going to see on the market. 714 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:11,520 Speaker 1: I don't know else. I haven't gone to see yes yet, 715 00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:17,480 Speaker 1: so maybe hey, look at the memristor machine. And that 716 00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,799 Speaker 1: wraps up our classic episode about random access memory. I 717 00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:23,560 Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed it. Always fun to kind of look 718 00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:27,160 Speaker 1: at the basics of technology, especially with my former co 719 00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,400 Speaker 1: host Chris Palette, who was a true joy to record with. 720 00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:34,480 Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed this, this glimpse down memory lane. 721 00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:37,200 Speaker 1: If you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of 722 00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,400 Speaker 1: tech Stuff, or you just want to reach out and 723 00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,520 Speaker 1: say good job, or maybe you want to ask why 724 00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:44,759 Speaker 1: can't Chris do this show instead of you? I mean, 725 00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:46,640 Speaker 1: that will hurt my feelings, but I understand if you 726 00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:50,480 Speaker 1: want to say that, go visit tech Stuff podcast dot com. 727 00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:52,200 Speaker 1: That's the website for the show. You'll find all the 728 00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,160 Speaker 1: different ways to contact me there. And don't forget check 729 00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,359 Speaker 1: out our merchandise store over at t public dot com 730 00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,720 Speaker 1: slash tech Stuff. There to find links to t shirts, 731 00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:06,320 Speaker 1: tote bags, stickers, all sorts of stuff, all with different 732 00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,279 Speaker 1: tech Stuff designs. We got some cool ones in there. 733 00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:10,640 Speaker 1: We're adding more all the time. Make sure you check 734 00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:13,239 Speaker 1: that out and I'll talk to you again really soon 735 00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:21,520 Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is 736 00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:32,680 Speaker 1: that how stuff Works dot com