Serial computer

A serial computer is a computer typified by bit-serial architecture – i.e., internally operating on one bit or digit for each clock cycle. Machines with serial main storage devices such as acoustic or magnetostrictive delay lines and rotating magnetic devices were usually serial computers.

Serial computers required much less hardware than their parallel computing counterpart,[1] but were much slower. There are modern variants of the serial computer available as a soft microprocessor[2] which can serve niche purposes where size of the CPU is the main constraint.

The first computer that was not serial (the first parallel computer) was the Whirlwind 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.

Serial machines

The first computer that was not serial (the first parallel computer) was the Whirlwind in 1951.

Massively parallel

Most of the early massive parallel processing machines were built out of individual serial processors, including:

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See also
  • 1-bit architecture

References
  1. Wilkes, Maurice Vincent (1956). Automatic digital computers. Methuen Publishing Ltd / John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
  2. Howe, Richard (June 27, 2019). "Bit-Serial". Github Project: A Bit Serial CPU. Retrieved June 28, 2019.
  3. Miller, Raymond E. (1965). Switching Theory - Volume 1: Combinational Circuits. 1 (Second printing, March 1966, of 1st ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 44–47. LCCN 65-14249.
  4. Ken Shirriff. "The Texas Instruments TMX 1795: the (almost) first, forgotten microprocessor". quote: "Even operating one bit at a time as a serial computer, the Datapoint 2200 performed considerably faster than the 8008 chip." Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  5. Holt, Raymond M., Architecture Of A Microprocessor (PDF), pp. 5, 7, archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-11-04, retrieved 2017-11-04, […] the processor was designed to transfer data serially throughout the entire system. […] The Parallel Multiplier Unit […] by means of a parallel algorithm […]
  6. John Culver. "MasPar: Massively Parallel Computers – 32 cores on a chip".
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