Computer memory is very frequently misunderstood, for a number of reasons. One, it is not physically seen or directly manipulated by the user. Two, measurement of its quantity is not expressed in terms familiar in other contexts. Three, because the size of hard disks, also not physically seen by the user, are measured using the same units.
Circa 1997:
I had called the electronics department of a chain department store to ask how much their RAM was. The clerk who answered the phone asked me, "Is that that CD-RAM stuff?" I decided it was better to drive over there and see for myself.
A friend of mine, bought a modem for her computer. She rang me because she was having an "Out of Memory" message trying to install the Internet software for it. It turned out she only had 8 megs of memory, and the package required 16. I offered to help her buy some more memory, open up the computer, and install it for her.
A woman brought her Macintosh LC520 into my shop to have more memory added. This was all fine, but she said she the computer kept running out of memory at startup. I found this to be rather interesting and decided to fire it up at the counter while she watched.
After plugging in the computer to the wall and a keyboard and mouse I hit the power button. The computer sounded to life and the screen lit with the "Welcome to Macintosh" box on screen. This was immediately replaced by the Mac/OS picture and a status bar that was progressing as the extensions loaded. As the bar approached the end she said, "See the memory is all full." I looked at her rather confused and asked where she would have gotten that idea. Apparently one of the know-nothings at the local computer superstore had said that that was what the progress bar meant.
Needless to say she was rather angry at them for the erroneous information. She ending up not buying the RAM but was thankful for our good service.
Our company had begun to demo its new product, a client-server office suite. It was pretty new to everyone, and there was a lot of groundwork to be done to ensure that the demos would go smoothly and the stories would be compelling. The marketing guys decided to host a three-way question and answer session between the pre-sales people, some of the key developers, and the senior marketing suits.
About ten minutes into the session one of the pre-sales guys asked about per user memory consumption at the server end, stating that his tests showed a 32 meg per user minimum (back when 64 meg servers were considered big). Before anyone technical had a chance to answer, one of the senior marketing suits piped up and said, in a totally exasperated voice, "It's client-server! You don't need memory because it's in the network!"
A customer called in at MicroSystems Warehouse and said he needed to speak to a tech immediately. I asked him what the problem was and that I might be able to help. He said, "Are the SIMM slots located in the back of the computer?" I asked him if he needed help installing the chips. He said, "No. I installed them and the computer just isn't recognizing them." I said to him, "Where did you install the chips?" He said, "I removed my sound card and put them in there."
I got a guy who was trying to remove a 4 meg SIMM from his LC III so he could install an 8 meg SIMM. He complained that he was having trouble with it -- it appeared to be soldered in. I asked him if he had released the SIMM from the clips; he said he had to rip one of them off. He said the ends could wiggle free, but the middle looked like it was soldered in. I tried to understand what the heck was going on in his Mac...the weirdness went on for at least five minutes. Finally, grasping for some semblance of reality, I asked how much memory his LC III had. Four megs. He looked at the directions again -- "Ohhhhh, you gotta take it out if you have more than four megs." He was removing the SIMM slot.
He asked if he should solder it back down.
Grinding noises from SIMMs? This was a new one.