Hardware Bible

Strictly speaking, memory is anything that holds data, even a single bit. That memory can take a variety of forms. A binary storage system, the kind used by today's computers, can be built from marbles, marzipan, or metal-oxide semiconductors. Not al...

The stuff that most people call "computer memory" in a specific sense functions as your computer's primary storage. That is, the contents of the storage system are in a form that your computer's microprocessor can immediately access, ready to be used...

To remember a single bit—whether alone or as part of a nibble, byte, word, or double-word—computer memory needs only to preserve a single state (that is, whether something is true or false, positive or negative, or a binary one or zero). Almost anyth...

No memory system is perfect. Certainly your computer's memory won't mislay its gloves or forget your birthday, but it can suffer little slips, an errant bit here and there. Although one bit in a few million might not seem like a big deal, it's enough...

Secondary storage is essentially an electronic closet, a place where you put information that you don't want to constantly hold in your hands but that you don't want to throw away, either. As with the straw hats, squash rackets, wallpaper tailings, a...

Magnetic storage is one of the oldest storage mediums used by computers (only punch cards predate its application), and it ranks as one of the most reliable. It also yields systems with the lowest cost per byte of storage. Magnetic systems are popul...

Today the chief alternative to magnetic media in mass storage system is optical technology. Cheap and easy duplication has made computer optical disc storage an ideal distribution medium. Its versatility (the same basic technology stores data, sound,...

Even before anyone conceived the idea of the first personal computer, mainframe computer designers faced the same tradeoff between memory and mass storage. Mass storage was plentiful and cheap; memory was expensive, so much so that not even large cor...

Just as virtual memory can stretch the capacity of your primary storage system, data compression can boost the capacity of your secondary storage system. Compression eliminates the waste in a storage system. It seeks to put every bit of information i...