RAM stands for random access memory and is used as temporary storage for data retrieved from the hard drive. The first modern form of RAM was released in 1969 by Intel, which created the 64-bit 3101 Shottky Bipolar memory. RAM has evolved significantly since then through improvements. Static RAM (SRAM) holds its data without refreshing as long as power is supplied, while dynamic RAM (DRAM) must be regularly refreshed to maintain data and is the most common type used in computers. Read-only memory (ROM) is programmed with fixed data during manufacturing and is used to store firmware for booting devices.