I love how Tim Cook has been lowering costs. It's something Apple was never previously able to do with all its previous hardware production and always left Apple with a big disadvantage compared to the competing hardware that was made in such huge numbers. By decreasing costs and carefully selecting the higher price ranged options in their hardware the profit has been through the roof. If there is a need to compete more closely on price with a competitor Apple can do it and still get comparable profit margins. It's a good place for Apple to be in.
Here's my take on this, as a layman who is somewhat familiar with the issue:
At the layman's level, Hiro is correct. Hiro is saying the following things, all of which are true:
RAM means Random Access Memory, meaning memory where reading/writing any byte has roughly the same access time as any other. This is different from traditional hard disks, where the data must be read sequentially in strips.
Main memory is always RAM, but RAM is not always main memory. When we say RAM we tend to mean main memory, but this is just a lazy shorthand, not a definition. People claiming that Flash is obviously not RAM because RAM means system memory have a facile understanding of the topic.
Flash memory behaves more like RAM than a traditional rotary hard disk because it has roughly constant time access, you don't have to read it sequentially.
At a much more technical level, wizard69 and others are arguing the following, which (if you check Wikipedia) is also true:
The technical definition of RAM means that every byte should have constant time access. But the specific form of NAND memory used in Flash is written in blocks so you cannot actually write any specific byte in constant time.
People in the industry don't refer to Flash as RAM for this reason.
Hiro seems to be more in the right here. Many people who are agreeing with wizard69 have no understanding whatsoever of the issue and are just thinking "RAM is memory and Flash is disk space and those aren't the same, duh!" which is completely missing the point.
Most people with a bit more understanding agree with Hiro that Flash fits the common definition of RAM in that it has roughly constant-time access (unlike a rotary disk) and it's not read-only (unlike a ROM).
wizard69 is technically right since the industry doesn't actually use RAM to refer to Flash, but since most of the people who agree with him don't understand the issue and are therefore more wrong than either Hiro or winzard69, I think Hiro is doing more good in terms of correcting misconceptions about how memory works.
Dan's original usage is also not "misinformation", it's just common usage amongst laypeople (which is what most of us are).
Comments
I love how Tim Cook has been lowering costs. It's something Apple was never previously able to do with all its previous hardware production and always left Apple with a big disadvantage compared to the competing hardware that was made in such huge numbers. By decreasing costs and carefully selecting the higher price ranged options in their hardware the profit has been through the roof. If there is a need to compete more closely on price with a competitor Apple can do it and still get comparable profit margins. It's a good place for Apple to be in.
At the layman's level, Hiro is correct. Hiro is saying the following things, all of which are true:
- RAM means Random Access Memory, meaning memory where reading/writing any byte has roughly the same access time as any other. This is different from traditional hard disks, where the data must be read sequentially in strips.
- Main memory is always RAM, but RAM is not always main memory. When we say RAM we tend to mean main memory, but this is just a lazy shorthand, not a definition. People claiming that Flash is obviously not RAM because RAM means system memory have a facile understanding of the topic.
- Flash memory behaves more like RAM than a traditional rotary hard disk because it has roughly constant time access, you don't have to read it sequentially.
At a much more technical level, wizard69 and others are arguing the following, which (if you check Wikipedia) is also true:- The technical definition of RAM means that every byte should have constant time access. But the specific form of NAND memory used in Flash is written in blocks so you cannot actually write any specific byte in constant time.
- People in the industry don't refer to Flash as RAM for this reason.
Hiro seems to be more in the right here. Many people who are agreeing with wizard69 have no understanding whatsoever of the issue and are just thinking "RAM is memory and Flash is disk space and those aren't the same, duh!" which is completely missing the point.Most people with a bit more understanding agree with Hiro that Flash fits the common definition of RAM in that it has roughly constant-time access (unlike a rotary disk) and it's not read-only (unlike a ROM).
wizard69 is technically right since the industry doesn't actually use RAM to refer to Flash, but since most of the people who agree with him don't understand the issue and are therefore more wrong than either Hiro or winzard69, I think Hiro is doing more good in terms of correcting misconceptions about how memory works.
Dan's original usage is also not "misinformation", it's just common usage amongst laypeople (which is what most of us are).