OAKLAND- Until now, any "RAM" mentioned in the same breath as the Oakland Raiders probably played for that other erstwhile Los Angeles football team, the St. Louis Rams.

But to an increasing number of Raiders fans, the word also refers to the random access memory inside their personal computers, where they can troll the Internet for information and conversation about the East Bay team.

Already, about 15 sites on the Internet's World Wide Web - some originating from as far away as Alberta, Canada - are devoted to Raiders home pages and discussion groups about the team.

Last week, the team's own official site went online. "Raidersnet" is one of the only team-sanctioned sites on the Internet, the international computer network used by millions of people every day.

"I think I've found most Raiders fans my age are pretty computer literate," said Tim Ibanez, 29, an accounting clerk from Point Richmond who runs his own Internet home page.

"I think it definitely goes against the cliché image of the Raiders fan," he said.

On the World Wide Web, the part of the Internet that includes graphics, the "Raiders World Fan Club," out of Scotts Valley, claims to receive thousands of log-ons a day from Internet subscribers in 48 sites and 17 countries. The site opened in August.

"The whole purpose for putting this site together was I knew there were fans all over the world, people who were displaced," said Rick Tracewell, 26, who runs the World Fan Club site. "These guys barely get news about the team."

Tracewell said during the Nov. 19 Dallas Cowboys-Raiders matchup, he received electronic mail from an American soldier stationed in Korea asking for an update.

The large number of users may explain why the Raiders franchise rushed to open its own on-line site this year. Reaching fans through the Internet can be a lucrative way to promote merchandise.

"There has always been a demand worldwide from fans to get more information," said Morris Bradshaw, a former wide receiver and now marketing director for the Raiders. "It's the 90's, and we thought we had to go out there and stake our claim."

Tracewell said he had tried to win the right to develop the Raiders' official Web site, but the team instead chose Serve.net, a Los Angeles-based company.

"We're still trying to recover from this," Tracewell said. "You wouldn't believe how much work I pushed off for this thing. We had to borrow money to make ends meet.... We didn't know there was another bidder involved."

But Bradshaw said the Raiders spoke with many people about developing the official site. In the end, he said, the team decided to go with a "comprehensive" company that could quickly create ways to sell merchandise.

For now, Raidersnet and most of the unofficial sites include news articles, statistics, commentary and photographs. Some have up-to-the-minute updates during games. Raidersnet may soon add moving pictures, sound and a shopping center.

One of the liveliest unofficial sites has been the "Raiders Fans Home Page" which includes "The Revelation of Donkey Don or Return to Oakland," a quasi-Biblical account of the team's crossing into the promised land.

"And R8DER spake, Woe to he who embraces a rival AFC West team that embarrasses the entire league by losing four Super Bowls," reads Chapter 3, verses 15-19 of "the gospel according to ryoung."

For those uninitiated with the minutiae of Raiders lingo, the site includes a quick list of definitions:

Chefs: Kansas City Chiefs

Chumpsters: San Diego Chargers

Fish: Miami Dolphins

House of Thrills: The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.

Whiners: San Francisco 49ers.

The site also includes a "trading post" where fans can unload things like a "Tim Brown replica jersey" and tickets to games. "Will pay good money for opening day program for San Diego Charges game," one person wrote.

Beyond the official and unofficial fan sites, countless more Raiders fans have created their own Internet home pages about whatever quirky thing they want to proclaim to the cyberworld. Many of those sites contain links to Raiders fan pages, like the World Fan Club, as a courtesy.

"I found a guy who is trying to expose abuses in the Mormon Church who has a link to my page," said David Brooks, 49, an immigration attorney in San Francisco.

Brooks, a fan since 1967, runs the "Vertical Game Home Page," which was inaugurated Oct. 1 and includes commentary on the Raiders' "attack strategy (that) revolutionized the modern passing game."

Brooks said he spent a weekend building the site, which is heavy with text. He spends a couple of hours a week updating it.* Brooks couldn't estimate the number of readers he gets, but he logs in about four or five electronic mail messages a week from fans, some from outside the United States.

Raiders fans who run their own sites said the Internet is a good way to gossip about the team and publish information not found in the mainstream media.

"The Raiders have always had a secrecy about them (so) that you didn't always know what was going on," Ibanez said. "The Internet is a chance for fans to speculate and distribute information they hear from other fans."

Still, a survey of some of the discussion groups on the Internet shows a small number of people actually participating in the Raiders chat rooms and news groups. Some fans seem content to just log on and read other people's work.

Some Internet users said indoctrinating Raiders fans into cyberspace was difficult.

"I personally had a hard time because the Raiders are kind of a grunt team. I think they like that image," said Jason Wibben, 21, a computer science student at the University of Illinois, Springfield who started his own Raiders page.

"But anybody can get on (the Internet) now. I don't think you can stereotype people," said Wibben, who became a Raiders fan through his grandfather, who grew up in Oakland.

The Raiders organization isn't worried about competition from the unofficial sites. Bradshaw said as long as the pages aren't used to earn a profit, the Raiders look on the other sites as another way to promote the team.

And for the most part there is very little criticism of the team on the Internet. Most of the people who run the unofficial sites profess no interest in making money off the Raiders.

"It's definitely not a for-profit endeavor," said David Bradford, 32, who manages the Raiders Fans Home Page out of Portland, Ore. "In fact, it costs me a little bit of money. I had to buy extra disk space for some of the pictures."

"We try to keep a positive spin on it," he said. "We never criticize the Raiders."

* Correction: I told him several hours per day, not per week.