Operating systems such as Microsoft Windows that display hard drive sizes using the customary binary prefix " GB " ( as it is used for RAM ) would display this as 279. 4 GB ( meaning 279. 4 × 1024 < sup > 3 </ sup >, or 279. 4 ×).

When the PC starts up, the first job for the BIOS is the power-on self-test, which initializes and identifies system devices such as the CPU, RAM, video display card, keyboard and mouse, hard disk drive, optical disc drive and other hardware.

For example, some memory can be stored in physical RAM chips while other memory is stored on a hard drive.

The unit would bring the system's available RAM up to a full 64K, a large amount for the time, and would have provided both a built-in cassette drive for data storage and a connection for an optional 40-column thermal printer.

The memory issue was also flagged by Crash magazine, which pointed out that the floppy disk format meant that games had to be loaded into the machine's RAM ( originally intended to be 128k ) in turn requiring the system to be constantly accessing the disk drive.

Because spreadsheets use large amounts of memory, 123 spurred the drive for greater RAM capacities in PCs and especially the event of " expanded memory " which allowed greater than 640k to be accessed.

* bytes ( 1024 < sup > 2 </ sup >, 2 < sup > 20 </ sup >): This definition is most commonly used in reference to computer memory ( e. g. RAM ), but most software that display file size or drive capacity, including file managers also use this definition.

It included between 8 and 64 MB of random access memory ( RAM ), a 256 MB magneto-optical ( MO ) drive, a 40 MB ( swap-only ), 330 MB, or 660 MB hard drive, 10Base-2 Ethernet, NuBus and a 17-inch MegaPixel grayscale display measuring 1120 by 832 pixels.

In 1989 a typical new PC, Macintosh, or Amiga computer included a few MB of RAM, a 640 × 480 16-color or 320x240 4000-color display, a 10 to 20 megabyte hard drive and few networking capabilities.

In its 5300ce incarnation with a TFT of 800x600 pixels, Apple offered a 117 MHz PPC, 32 MB of on-board RAM, and a hot-swappable drive bay.

Many clients have minimal RAM memory, some do not even have a hard drive.

The Spectrum was ultimately released as eight different models, ranging from the entry level model with 16 kB RAM released in 1982 to the ZX Spectrum + 3 with 128 kB RAM and built in floppy disk drive in 1987 ; together they sold in excess of 5 million units worldwide ( not counting numerous clones ).

* CPC464 ( 64 KB RAM, cassette drive )

* PCW8256 ( Z80, 3. 5 MHz, 256 KB RAM, single 180 KB 3 " floppy drive, dot-matrix printer, green screen )

* PCW8512 ( same as PCW8256 but with 512 KB RAM, 180 KB 3 " A: drive, 720 KB 3 " B: drive )

* PcW9256 ( Z80, 3. 5 MHz, 256 KB RAM, single 720 KB 3. 5 " floppy drive, dot-matrix printer, " paper white " screen )

* NC200 ( Z80, 128 KB RAM, adjustable 80 × 16 character LCD, 3. 5 in floppy disk drive )

During the booting process, the binary code of an operating system or runtime environment may be loaded from nonvolatile secondary storage ( such as a hard disk drive ) into volatile, or random-access memory ( RAM ) and then executed.

Instead, after the system is reset it reads and executes opcodes sequentially from a tape drive mounted on the front panel ; this sets up a boot loader in RAM which is then executed.

It had a full set of hardware and software components: a disk operating system included in a series of programmable read-only memory chips ( PROMs ); 8 Kilobytes of RAM ; IBM's Basic Assembly Language ( BAL ); a hard drive ; a color display ; a printer output ; a 150 bit / s serial interface for connecting to a mainframe ; and even the world's first microcomputer front panel.

A RAM drive ( RAM disk ) is a block of RAM ( primary storage or volatile memory ) that a computer's software is treating as if the memory were a disk drive ( secondary storage ).

The MC6802, introduced in 1977, included 128 bytes of RAM and an internal clock oscillator on chip.

Investrónica had helped adapt the ZX Spectrum + to the Spanish market after the Spanish government introduced a special tax on all computers with 64 kB RAM or less, and a law which obliged all computers sold in Spain to support the Spanish alphabet and show messages in Spanish.

* It introduced a vector base register ( VBR ), which allowed the vector jump table to be anywhere in RAM.

In addition IBM introduced during the SuperComputing 2007 ( SC07 ) conference in Reno a new POWER6-based System p 575 with 32 POWER6 cores at 4. 7 GHz and up to 256GB of RAM with water cooling.

In 1986, the successful Organiser II introduced a number of hardware improvements, a better keyboard and display, a much larger ROM and either 8K or 16K of battery-backed RAM, and featured a capable newly-designed single-tasking operating system.

Later models in the Organiser II range offered other hardware improvements, with 4-line displays, and also models were introduced with 32, 64 and 96KB RAM.

However, this hard disk support introduced some incompatibility with existing Amiga software because the memory used for hard disk control prevented some memory intensive titles from launching without adding additional RAM.

The Toshiba " Toscal " BC-1411 electronic calculator, which was introduced in November 1966, used a form of dynamic RAM built from discrete components.

The KIM-1 was introduced in the April 1976 issue of Byte magazine and the advertisement stated " 1 K BYTE RAM " and " 2048 ROM BYTES ".

While a good use of very limited RAM space, this design led to problems once Apple introduced the Macintosh II, which used the 32-bit Motorola 68020 CPU.

AmigaOS 4. 0 introduced a new system for allocating RAM and defragmenting physical memory.

In response to these concerns, Texas Instruments introduced the TI-89 which is functionally similar to the original TI-92, but featured Flash ROM and 188 KB RAM, and a smaller design without the QWERTY keyboard.

In 1960 RAM introduced its first jets: Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelles.

In Canada it was first introduced in 1990 by Rogers Cantel, and in 1991 by carrier RAM Mobile Data.

Load relocation was first introduced on the VIC-20 because this machine could start BASIC RAM in several different locations, depending on the memory expansion that was installed.

In order to improve its commercial viability, the CM-2, launched in 1987, added Weitek 3132 floating-point numeric co-processors and more RAM to the system.

The first model was released in 1987, with a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU ( hence the name ), 1 MB of RAM and no hard drive ; the last model was released in 1993 with a 25 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU, 4 MB of RAM and optional 80 MB SCSI hard drive.

This dual-use method was required in 1987 since RAM was so expensive.

It was superseded in 1987 by the PC-1360, which featured one additional RAM expansion port, improved BASIC, floppy disk capability, and a faster CPU.

The cost of RAM ( over US $ 500 / Mb in 1987 ) and the slow and expensive hard disks of the day limited performance.