Computer Memory and Storage

A hard disk drive is a data storage device that uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve digital information using one or more rigid rapidly rotating disks coated with magnetic material.

A memory cell is the fundamental building block of computer memory, capable of storing one bit of information.

Core memory was the primary form of random-access computer memory in the mid-20th century, consisting of small magnetic rings (cores) used to store data.

A stack operates on the Last-In, First-Out (LIFO) principle, where the last item added is the first one removed. Buffers are generally First-In, First-Out (FIFO) structures.

The Program Counter (PC) or Instruction Pointer is the register that holds the address of the next instruction to be executed; in many contexts, this is referred to as an Address Register.

A paging drum is a dedicated high-speed storage device used in early virtual memory systems to hold pages of memory that were swapped out from RAM.

A page table is a data structure used by a virtual memory system in a computer operating system to store the mapping between virtual addresses and physical addresses.

Magnetic bubble memory was a type of non-volatile computer memory that used a thin magnetic film to hold bits of data as small magnetized areas, developed in the late 1960s.

A latch is a basic electronic circuit element that can store a single bit of data temporarily, serving as the fundamental building block for memory cells.

Punched cards were used for data storage and input in early computing systems long before magnetic storage media like tapes or disks became standard.

Expanded memory (EMS) was a technique in DOS-based systems to access memory beyond the 640KB conventional limit by swapping pages into a small window, requiring specific software support.

Cache memory is a high-speed storage layer that holds frequently accessed data so that future requests for that data can be served faster than accessing the main memory.