Android Terminology – Different Meanings of ROM in Devices

androidterminology

ROM – Read Only Memory
Does this term mean the memory which should only be read and not written to , or the memory which can only be read ?
"ROM in PC's and laptops are usually seperate chips in the motherboard where BIOS is present (Please correct me if I am wrong) . Can they be overwritten (I guess we can) ?
When we consider an android phone , it gets really confusing . What is the difference between ROM and "internal memory" in an Android phone ? It seems the same .

Best Answer

True ROM is extremely rare nowadays. Most everything that used to be ROM is actually non-volatile RAM, like flash memory. However, people occasionally use the term to refer to data that could be put into ROM if we were so inclined. Usually the operating system uses the MMU to prevent any writes.

The Android operating system allows providers to install software that the user is unable to erase without rooting the device. Thus, from the user's point of view that memory is effectively read only, even though it might physically reside on the exact same chip as memory the user thinks of as read/write.