Random Access Memory

Random access memory, or RAM, is memory whose contents are easily accessible to the processing components of a computer. In particular, the time it takes to read and write to a particular part of the memory does not depend on the address of the location to be read or written. This is in contrast to something like video tape which is accessed serially and, hence, the time it takes to read or write to any part of it depends on how far away the location is.