Word: rams
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...chips. Semiconductor makers in Japan and the U.S. vastly increased their capacity, expecting an annual sales growth of 30% to 100%. But when the computer industry's expansion stagnated two years ago, the resulting glut of chipmakers and chips triggered sharp price cutting. The cost of a 256K dynamic RAM (random access memory) chip, for example, which can store more than 256,000 bits of information, fell from almost $40 to as little as $3. Says Andrew Grove, president of Intel: "There are just too damn many of us. It is trench warfare by the commercial armies of two countries...
...Japanese companies have excelled most of all in the popular dynamic RAM chips, which are used by the dozens in personal computers and by the hundreds in larger models. While this type of integrated circuit was developed in the U.S., Japanese companies have proved adept at efficiently turning them out in mass volumes. Part of the problem is a difference in high-tech corporate culture. Says Richard Skinner, president of Integrated Circuit Engineering, a Scottsdale, Ariz., semiconductor-research firm: "In the U.S., the real glamour jobs are in designing the chips. But in Japan the manufacturing guys are equal." Indeed...
Face it, if you still have 128k you're living in the dark ages. Leave the cave, walk upright and get some more memory. 512k of RAM (random access memory, or available storage space) allows you to stash more information in the computer at any given time. You can write longer papers, and your Mac will even perform many operations faster because it will have to access the disk drive less often. Especially if you are considering writing a thesis, or are upset with the snail-like pace of your computer, you need the added memory...
...SCSI logic board, which comes standard on the Mac Plus, adds several features unnecessary for the average student, but advantageous for special applications. With the board, users can add up to four megabytes of RAM and hook-up peripherals such as hard disk drives through the SCSI port. A SCSI upgrade for an old 512k Mac costs $418 plus installation from Harvard's computer store...
...numerological Hebraic rhapsody. In the first movement, "Free-Style Events," the orchestral players improvise lustily on a seven-note scale while shouting out seven times sheva, the Hebrew word for the mystical number seven, then proclaiming "Hamishim!," which means 50. Brass instruments evoke the blowing of the shofar, the ram's horn used in sacred services; strings scuttle along skittishly; even a synthesizer chimes...