When I was a kid, a favourite uncle of mine (favoured because he was rich and always brought gifts when he visited) showed me something incredible - a digital wristwatch with an LED display (yes, I’m that old)!

The watch face was totally black. But, when my uncle pressed a little button, red LEDs lit up and displayed the time. It was the most awesome thing I’d ever seen and I lusted after that watch for a long, long time.

Imagine my delight when I learned that LED character displays are becoming fashionable once more - on, of all things, RAM modules…

Corsair, famous manufacturers of highly-overclockable RAM, have introduced retro RAM - memory that “monitors module parametric data in real time” and displays it, on the DIMM, via a series of LEDs. Sadly, they don’t call it retro RAM, choosing instead the rather more mundane “XMS Xpert“, but it’s ultra-cool nonetheless.

These DDR modules constantly measure and display their current frequency, voltage and temperature. What’s more, you can program our own personal message that will scroll across the display. You’ve got up to 69 characters, so unleash your creativity. But these modules are about more than good looks. As part of Corsair’s legendary XMS family, they deliver blistering fast performance in high-transaction applications such as gaming or photo and animation processing.

Drool!