Product Code Database
A serial computer is a computer typified by bit-serial architecture i.e., internally operating on one bit or numerical digit for each clock signal. Machines with serial main storage devices such as acoustic or magnetostrictive delay lines and drum memory were usually serial computers.
Serial computers require much less hardware than their bit-parallel counterparts which exploit bit-level parallelism to do more computation per clock cycle. There are modern variants of the serial computer available as a soft microprocessor which can serve niche purposes where the size of the CPU is the main constraint.
The first computer that was not serial and used a parallel bus was the Whirlwind I in 1951.
A serial computer is not necessarily the same as a computer with a 1-bit architecture, which is a subset of the serial computer class. 1-bit computer instructions operate on data consisting of single bits, whereas a serial computer can operate on N-bit data widths, but does so a single bit at a time.
(1+viii+87+3 pages)
(26 pages)
(1975). 9780574184054, Science Research Associates, Inc. (SRA). ISBN 9780574184054
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