A tech conversation…

When you’re a consultant, you once in a while get to overhear (alright, I’m constantly eavesdropping) some interesting conversations that amuses you. Today’s one: a technical one.

Scenario: a woman is about to place an order on a computer and a guy comes by to give her advice:

But make sure not to order from that place, since they can only offer you 1 GB RAM memory per default.

1 GB?! But that sucks! I’ve seen ads in the paper for PCs with a 100 GB!

Ehhh… Uncomfortable silence
That’s hard drive size. I’m talking about memory here.

Oh…

5 Comments

  • Among the people I know who barely know anything about computers, it's not rare to mix up 'memory' and 'hard drive'. To them, the hard drive is a memory. The actual component we usually call memory is completely irrelevant to the way they experience and understand a computer.

    It's complicated stuff, k 😉

  • Rado says:

    Technically, the hard drive is non-volatile memory. Of course it's not made up of transistors but hey… it's memory.

  • Love says:

    What's the point here? That she mixed up RAM and harddrive capacity?

  • Chris says:

    Hmm… I know this uncomfortable feeling… It usually comes if my boss says something technical. It's like in Dilbert. 😉

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Rado,

    Well, yeah… But let's not go there right now. 🙂

    Love,

    Yes, that's the point. With people working with IT, i think it's fair to expect them to make the distinction. If, for no other reason, out of the context that it's a vast difference between 1 GB and 100 GB.

    Chris,

    Yes, Dilbert seems to be more of a documentary. 🙂

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