I mean I can run a current through a metal pipe but it doesn’t mean I can store a copy of Skyrim on it.
In: 0
It is possible to store information in a wire because the speed the wave propagates is finite. It is not how it is done today but [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-line_memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-line_memory) was a thing in the 1950- 60s.
The way it is done typically today is with transistors that are electrically controlled switches. The basic idea is you store data by letting electricity through or not. You can think of it as a bunch of light switches that you can flip.
Fast SRAM connects transistors in a loop so store data. A simple layout with transistor and resistors look like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_(electronics)#/media/File:Transistor_Bistable_interactive_animated-en.svg
Regular RAM is DRAM and it stores information by charge in a capacitor or not. You can create charge by rubbing a balloon on your hair. But a bunch of them in a row and rubbing some against your head to change them up bot not others, that pattern of changed vs no changed is data.
Both SRAM and DRAM need power to keep the data. The change in DRAM slowly leaks and you need to refresh it. FLASH memory is built in a special way so the change is stored in a floating gate that it can’t leak away from. The advantage is no power is needed to keep the data there. The disadvantage is storing and reading data is a lot slower than the RAM and there is a limited number of time you can write to it. This is one of the two common ways to store data like games in a computer.
The other common way is hard drives. They store data magnetical by changing the magnetic polarity on part of a disk that rotates. It is like you store data with bar magnets and you change the direction of the north pole to store information.
This all stores data a bit at the time, there are 8 bits in a byte and 1 billion byte in a gigabyte. So there are billions of transistors in the chips we use to store all the data.
Latest Answers