Random Access Memory

Random-access memory, or RAM, is a form of electronic computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, used to hold a running program's working data and machine code; unlike direct-access media such as hard disks and magnetic tape, a random-access device can read or write data in almost the same time regardless of where in memory that data sits. An early form, the Williams tube developed at the University of Manchester, provided the storage medium for the first electronically stored program, run on the Manchester Baby computer, and IBM introduced the first monolithic semiconductor RAM, the 16-bit SP95 static RAM chip for its System/360 Model 95, in 1965. Intel's 1103, introduced in October 1970, was the first commercially successful dynamic RAM integrated circuit, and RAM built from continually shrinking semiconductor chips has remained the standard working memory of computers ever since.