The broad use of microsatellites as a tool for constructing linkage maps in plants has been limited by the need for sequence data to detect the underlying simple sequence repeats. Therefore, random amplified microsatellite polymorphisms (RAMPs) were studied as an alternative approach for barely mapping. Labelled (GA)n simple sequence repeat primers were combined with RAPD primers of different length and sequence to generate RAMPs. To get additional polymorphisms (called dRAMPs), the obtained products were also analysed after digestion with MseI. There were 0-11 polymorphisms found per primer combination. Sixty RAMPs/dRAMPs identifying 40 new loci were mapped onto a barley RFLP map. The new DNA markers are found on all chromosomes and they increased the length of the barely map by 174 cM to a total of 1270 cM. Interestingly, the RAMPs/dRAMPs caused stretching effects in genome areas where stretching was also observed for AFLPs.