Re: EDO memory

[whittle@usc.edu (Randy Whittle)]

At 9:11 AM 5/9/96, Lee Hetherington wrote:
>Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is EDO memory?  What does EDO
>stand for?

        "Extended Data Out".

        I don't know the technical details, but as I recall reading in some
PC rag, the idea is it has some method of increasing data retrieval just a
little, increasing performance (particularly on Pentium machines) over
non-EDO memory.  Exactly how it does that, I'm not sure (its not rated any
faster in terms of nanoseconds).  Supposedly its something along the lines
of about 10% improvement.  Given that CPU's have gotten so fast as to sit
around and wait even on RAM, any improvement is something useful.

        The good news is that it doesn't particularly cost more than
non-EDO.  In fact, I'm told that EDO is by definition non-parity.  So
you'll see that it can actually be cheaper than non-EDO memory that has
parity chips on it (by a few bucks, anyway).

        As a side note, I thought it would be funny (painfully so) to
mention to the list that I bought some more memory for my desktop machine
after looking at how prices had fallen so.  I got a pair of 16 MB modules
purchased on April 30 for $240-ish each.  Checking the website of the place
I bought them from just yesterday, I see they are now priced at $200 even.
1 week later.  Considering I bought a 3rd 16 MB SIMM for my father, I lost
over $100 in depreciation over 1 week's time.  Ouch.

        Oh well...


-----
Randy Whittle           whittle@usc.edu         http://www-scf.usc.edu/~whittle
USC Graduate School of Business

        Women often ask, "What do men really want, deep in their souls?"
The best answer--based on in-depth analysis of the complex and subtle
interplay of thought, instinct, and emotion that constitutes the male psyche
--is that deep in their souls, men want to watch stuff go 'bang'.
                - Dave Barry, October 2, 1994