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Annotation of coherent/a/usr/man/ALL/randomaccess, revision 1.1.1.1

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                      3: random access               Definition              random access
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                      8: In the context of  computing, random access means that an entity,
                      9: such as  memory, can be  accessed at any  point, not just  at the
                     10: beginning.  This  means that all points within  memory can be ac-
                     11: cessed equally  quickly.  This contrasts  with sequential access,
                     12: in which entities must be accessed in a particular order, so that
                     13: some entities take longer to access than do others.
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                     15: A tape  drive is an example of a  sequential access device, i.e.,
                     16: the order  in which  data are  read is dictated  by the  order in
                     17: which they stream past the tape head.  Random-access memory (RAM)
                     18: is an example of random access.  Hard disks and floppy disks com-
                     19: bine elements of random access and sequential access.
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                     21: RAM, which usually consists of semiconductor integrated circuits,
                     22: is also strictly random access.  In this regard, the term ``RAM''
                     23: is   slightly  misleading;   a  more   accurate  name   would  be
                     24: ``read/write  memory'',  to contrast  RAM  with read-only  memory
                     25: (ROM), which is also random access memory.
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                     27: ***** See Also *****
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                     29: definitions, read-only memory
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                     64: COHERENT Lexicon                                           Page 1
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