ROM and RAM

Pete2 · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 19, 2004 Posts: 82

I'm looking at the eten m500 which has 128mb flash rom and 64mb ram as a replacement for my xda2.
Does the flash rom mean that it can be upgraded later and that when you install more applications they are stored in rom as opposed to ram and the ram is used by the programs whilst running.
Or are applications stored in ram and also use the available ram memory to run.
Reason I'm asking is that I've got 77mb of ram free on my xda which has 126.03 built in memory so if it only had 64 mb built in I'd only have 13 mb free for the programs to run on ( if I installed the same applications).
Would this amount of ram be enough to run tomtom5 without it slowing or freezing?

If anyone can shed some light on this for me it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Pete2

Pete2 · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 19, 2004 Posts: 82

Got my eten m500 and found this http://www.eten-users.net/index.php?showtopic=70
about rom and ram. A good explanation of the differences and uses of rom and ram.

CyborgCobra · Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 10:21 pm Post subject:

the easyest way to understand ram and rom is by thinking of it as this

ram = Random Acess Memory : think of it as a case short turm memory

data is stored in the chip to allow the operating system to get infomation it need all the time quickly sorta a read then use if not needed erase and reuse the space again

rom = Read Only Memory : as with ram data is stored in the chip set but in this case the chip will not allow you to erase or ad data to the data thats stored there

in other words it only allows you to read whats in it already

this usally means that in the case of a PDA or any pc in general the rom is used to save data like the operating system and progs that were installed at the factory

flash rom : in this version the rom still hold the atributes of the normal rom but you can add and remove things from it by whats called flashing ( no jokes )

most hardware uses this to type of rom somewere

in a pc's case this type of chip is used to hold the bios ( infomation that you see when you first boot your system ( in some case would be covered by the makers logo so you wouldn'e see the boot process )

to over right this type of rom you would enherently have to flash the rom chip but by doing this you would over right all data stored in the chip loosing any progs and operating system that in installed on it

the probabilty and don't quote me on this is that the PDA as the ability to add info to the rom like new programs inbuilt

your best bet would be to check with the manufactor as to the adding of new programs to the system and were there stored in the pda

also if there stored permanatly incase you have to do a hard reboot

remember in yopur pc's case you use a hard drive to store data that you wish to keep and in a pda's case this is replaces by the ram hence why when your bat go's dead on your XDA you need to recharge as soon as pos or all info saved will be lossed becouse only the operating systam and factory installed programs are stored on the rom

hoep this helps a little with out confusing you more :D

Pete2 · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 19, 2004 Posts: 82

Thanks for the reply.
I can select to store programs in the rom on the eten and leave the ram free for the applications to run.
Big bonus - if i let the pda's battery runs flat i don't lose the stuff i've stored in the rom ( but could just as easily do a restore from backup file).

Cheers

Pete

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