|Looks allot like videoRAM, or VRAM.  This is basically a DRAM with
|a static buffer that you can transfer entire rows to, and also write
|from the buffer back into the DRAM.  The buffer is serial, and has
|some nice features like setting a particular starting address, it
|can wrap around, etc.  Takes 3 states to transfer from the DRAM
|to the SAM port, and there is stays until you overwrite it.

True, a VRAM is one type of device which uses more than one row
buffer (and a useful one at that); what I (and the prof) was/were
thinking of, though, would be a device in which the main processor
could access the row buffers 'at will'.  In an application which
has to move around large amounts of data(*) the ability to get fast
access to everything in multiple rows could reap big payoffs.

(*) In cases where memory is being moved in row-sized chunks, it would
    even be possible to read a row into the buffer and write it to
    multiple rows in the memory array.

Of course, given that Windows seems to have a certain sense of ennui
which is independent of CPU speed, I'm not sure how much improving the
memory infrastructure would help...