suned05

Hi,As you may or may not of guessed, yes i am having great difficulties coming to terms with RAM.
I have read the pinned guide above but yet still don't understand what i am doing.
Recently i bought some more RAM for my computer but had to go into a shop and them select it for me because i didn't have a clue what i was doing. Now i am looking yo buy online so therefore really need to know what i am looking for. the RAM i bought for my OLD computer was

512MB PC2100 DDR 184 pin 266MHZ DIMM

I have highlighted in red the bits i think i know about. in the shop, the assistant told me that you could not mix and match RAM, and that it has to be specific. I understand that it has to have the correct pins like 184 pin means you can't stick one in with 200 pins or what ever, because that requires no knowledge what so ever.

Its the other part i don't understand- the type of RAM eg. DDR, the PC2100 bit, the 266MHZ and DIMM parts to so basically the whole concept.

So I want to buy RAM for my new computer, what am i looking to buy, what bits of the sentence ...........


512MB PC2100 DDR 184 pin 266MHZ DIMM

am i looking for, do i have to buy RAM that is exactly the same as the one i have in, apart from the 512 bit, or am i free to choose one providing that it os DDR or what ever.

Sorry if i haven't made myself clear, but if anyone knows what i am on about please can you let me know
thx