Search Google for "computer hardware guide".

Rambus remained too expensive compared to DDR/DDR2, without enough of a performance edge, so never gained much market share. When Intel started developing support for DDR2 rather than exclusively using Rambus for high end CPUs, that was the beginning of the end for Rambus.

Check your local public library and see if they carry any computing magazines (Maximum PC is good, PC World is ok, some contain reviews designed not to offend advertisers and are pretty much useless). Some magazines have articles explaining how various hardware or component technologies work, or compare different versions of the same type of hardware.