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THE JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.

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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.

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Events

Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.

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MY'STORY

The MOVE Fire

This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985 Philadelphia police fired thousands of rounds at the MOVE house, city officials approved dropping an explosive device on the roof, the resulting fire was allowed to burn, 11 people—including five children—died, and 61 homes were destroyed. Philadelphia City Council later called it a “brutal attack carried out by the City of Philadelphia on its own citizens” and acknowledged that no individual faced criminal consequences for the bombing. One timeline correction worth preserving for the BHP record: the major previous MOVE-police confrontation was August 8, 1978, about seven years before the bombing, not a year or two earlier. Officer James Ramp was killed, other police and firefighters were wounded, nine MOVE members were later convicted, and television cameras recorded police beating Delbert Africa during his arrest. The 1985 MOVE Commission later specifically criticized city planners for failing to adequately use lessons from that 1978 confrontation. And that actually strengthens the point you’re making: 1985 did not happen without precedent or institutional memory. There had already been a deadly confrontation with MOVE, years of conflict, negotiations and police involvement before Osage Avenue.

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BLACK FACTS
The Truths They Never Taught You...

Katherine Johnson — Mathematics to the Moon

Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.

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Wikipedia

Video random-access memory

GDDR5X SDRAM on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card

Video random-access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor.[1] It often uses a different technology than other computer memory, in order to be read quickly for display on a screen.

Relation to GPUs

[edit]
Independent system RAM and video RAM
Unified memory
A GPU die surrounded by VRAM chips

Many modern GPUs rely on VRAM. In contrast, a GPU that does not use VRAM, and relies instead on system RAM, is said to have a unified memory architecture, or shared graphics memory.

System RAM and VRAM have been segregated due to the bandwidth requirements of GPUs,[2][3] and to achieve lower latency, since VRAM is physically closer to the GPU die.[4]

Modern VRAM is typically found in a BGA package[5] soldered onto a graphics card.[6] The VRAM is cooled along with the GPU by the GPU heatsink.[7]

Technologies

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See also

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References

[edit]
  1. ^ Foley, James D.; van Dam, Andries; Feiner, Steven K.; Hughes, John F. (1997). Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice. Addison-Wesley. p. 859. ISBN 0-201-84840-6.
  2. ^ "What is VRAM: The Memory Power Behind Real-time Ray-Tracing". Archived from the original on 2022-05-22. Retrieved 2022-05-16.
  3. ^ "Relationship Between RAM and VRAM Bandwidth and Their Latency". 17 May 2021.
  4. ^ "RAM vs. VRAM: What's the Difference?". makeuseof.com. 16 July 2021.
  5. ^ "Encapsulated in CPUs, GPUs, RAM and Flash: Types and Uses". 23 March 2021.
  6. ^ "Graphics Card Components & Connectors Explained". 29 March 2017.
  7. ^ "Different Types of Graphics Card Cooling Solutions for GPU, VRAM & VRM". 17 January 2017.
  8. ^ "HBM Graphics Cards - 7 GPUs with HBM Memory". Axiom Gaming. 16 August 2025.
  9. ^ "GPU Framebuffer Memory: Understanding Tiling".

Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.

Wikipedia

Video random-access memory

Video random-access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor. It often uses a different technology than other computer memory, in order to be read quickly for display on a screen.

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Wikipedia

Dynamic random-access memory

Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell. A DRAM memory cell usually consists of a microscopic capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology. While most DRAM memory cell designs use a capacitor and transistor, some only use two transistors. In the designs where a capacitor is used, the capacitor can either be charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1. The electric charge on the capacitors gradually leaks away; without intervention, the data on the capacitor would soon be lost. To prevent this, DRAM requires an external memory refresh circuit which periodically rewrites the data in the capacitors, restoring them to their original charge. This refresh process is the defining characteristic of dynamic random-access memory, in contrast to static random-access memory (SRAM) which does not require data to be refreshed. Unlike flash memory, DRAM is volatile memory (as opposed to non-volatile memory), since it loses its data quickly when power is removed. However, DRAM does exhibit limited data remanence. DRAM typically takes the form of an integrated circuit chip, which can consist of dozens to billions of DRAM memory cells. DRAM chips are widely used in digital electronics where low-cost, high-capacity computer memory is required. One of the largest applications for DRAM is the main memory (colloquially called the RAM) in modern computers and graphics cards (where the main memory is called the graphics memory). It is also used in many portable devices and video game consoles. In contrast, SRAM, which is faster and more expensive than DRAM, is typically used where speed is of greater concern than cost and size, such as the cache memories in processors. The need to refresh DRAM demands more complicated circuitry and timing than SRAM. This complexity is offset by the structural simplicity of DRAM memory cells: only one transistor and a capacitor are required per bit, compared to four or six transistors in SRAM. This allows DRAM to reach very high densities with a simultaneous reduction in cost per bit. Refreshing the data consumes power, causing a variety of techniques to be used to manage the overall power consumption. For this reason, DRAM usually needs to operate with a memory controller; the memory controller needs to know DRAM parameters, especially memory timings, to initialize DRAMs, which may be different depending on different DRAM manufacturers and part numbers. In 2017, DRAM had a 47% increase in the price-per-bit, the largest jump in 30 years since a 45% jump in 1988. In 2018, a "key characteristic of the DRAM market" was that there were "only three major suppliers — Micron Technology, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics" that were "keeping a pretty tight rein on their capacity". In early 2026, DRAM (DDR4, DDR, and flash memory/NAND) prices have "experienced compounded increases, some exceeding 200%, since early 2025 .. [because of] unprecedented demand coming from the AI sector .. HBM is crowding out commodity DRAM capacity. Micron noted a 3-to-1 conversion ratio between HBM and DDR5 wafer capacity, meaning every HBM ramp directly compresses general-purpose memory supply." In October 2026, China's CXMT announced progress on a new chip design that can store more data in less space, raising concerns about competition for major manufacturers such as Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix. Other manufacturers make and sell DIMMs but not the DRAM chips in them, such as Kingston Technology, and some manufacturers sell stacked DRAM (used e.g. in the fastest supercomputers on the exascale) separately, such as Viking Technology. Others sell such integrated into other products, such as Fujitsu into its CPUs, AMD in GPUs, and Nvidia, with HBM2 in some of their GPU chips.

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Wikipedia

Core memory (disambiguation)

Core memory or magnetic-core memory, is a form of random access computer memory used by computers in the mid-20th century. Core Memory or core memory may also refer to: Core rope memory, a form of read-only computer memory first used in the 1960s Core memories, plot-critical items in the 2005 video game Star Fox Assault Core memories, plot-critical items in the 2015 animated film Inside Out

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Wikipedia

Static random-access memory

Static random-access memory (static RAM or SRAM) is a type of random-access memory (RAM) that uses latching circuitry (flip-flop) to store each bit. SRAM is volatile memory; data is lost when power is removed. The static qualifier differentiates SRAM from dynamic random-access memory (DRAM): SRAM will hold its data permanently in the presence of power, while data in DRAM decays in seconds and thus must be periodically refreshed. SRAM is faster than DRAM but it is more expensive in terms of silicon area and cost. Typically, SRAM is used for the cache and internal registers of a CPU while DRAM is used for a computer's main memory.

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TOPIC OF THE DAY

Greenwood / Black Wall Street

Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.

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TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE DAY

Which Black woman became the first elected to the United States Congress?

Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.