Random Access Memory: Random access memory, or RAM, is the memory whose contents are simply accessible to the processing components of a computer. In specific, the time it takes to read and write to a particular portion of the memory does not based on the address of the position to be read or written. This is in contrast to somewhat like video tape that is accessed in sequence and, therefore, the time it takes to read or write to any portion of it depends on how far away the position is.