Delay line memory consisted of an electrical impulse being propagated through some liquid. Mercury was used because it is could hold many waves of information. The computer that was retrieving the information used an internal clock that would compare the time the pulses were sent with the current time. By knowing what time the information was propagated, it could be looked up and retrieved. Upon finding the propagated wave of information desired, the computer would re-transduce the wave back into an electrical pulse, and the computer would read it. DRAM works by storing each bit of memory into its own capacitor, thus eliminating the need for a mercury filled tubes. When the information is needed, the capacitor would be looked up, and the information would be there for retrieval. The design of the two are totally different, but the ideas are the same, store memory in a way that can be easily retrieved. DRAM is used in computers and other smart electronics today. The cool part about DRAM is that when the power is removed, the memory clears, thus leaving you with a clean place to store small pieces of data for easy retrieval. The manufacturing process of modern day electrical memory is quite different from that of the Delay line memory. The manufacturing of todays memory is all very systematic and clean. The lighting is a dark yellow color so as not to damage the intricate wafer pattern with other frequencies of light. Most of the production is done in the dark by machines, and the actual process is kept very secret.
