Serial computer explained
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 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 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
Massively parallel
Most of the early massive parallel processing machines were built out of individual serial processors, including:
See also
References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Further reading
- Book: Digit-Serial Computation . Richard I. . Hartley . Richard I. Hartley . Keshab K. . Parhi . . 1995 . 1 . 0-7923-9573-5 . SECS316 . The Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science . Norwell, Massachusetts, USA. (xiv+306 pages)
- A Systematic Approach for Design of Digit-Serial Signal Processing Architectures . Parhi . Keshab K. . . 38 . 4 . April 1991 . 358–375 . 10.1109/31.75394 . 1991ITCS...38..358P . (8 pages)
Notes and References
- Book: Nineteen Fifty-Seven to the Present . 1978 . 1972 . 6 . . Maynard, Massachusetts, USA . 7 . 2021-02-06 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220302210148/http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/_Books/DEC_1957_To_The_Present_1978.pdf . 2022-03-02. (1+viii+87+3 pages)
- Book: Switching Theory – Volume 1: Combinational Circuits . Raymond E. . Miller . 1965 . Second printing, March 1966, of 1st . 65-14249 . 1 . . 44–47.
- Book: Automatic digital computers . Wilkes . Maurice Vincent . Maurice Vincent Wilkes . 1956 . . 2012-06-06.
- Book: This paper describes the architecture of the CPU and Memory for the Central Air Data Computer (CADC) System used in the Grumman/Navy F14A carrier-based fighter aircraft. . Raymond M. . Holt . Raymond M. Holt . 1971 . AP1-26-97 . 5, 7 . 2017-11-04 . deviated . https://web.archive.org/web/20171104082502/http://firstmicroprocessor.com/documents/ap1-26-97.pdf . 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 […]. (26 pages)
- Web site: Bit-Serial: A bit-serial CPU written in VHDL, with a simulator written in C. . Howe . Richard James . 2020 . 2019-06-27 . Github Project: A Bit Serial CPU . 2019-06-28 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220615231144/https://github.com/howerj/bit-serial . 2022-06-15.
- Web site: The Texas Instruments TMX 1795: the (almost) first, forgotten microprocessor . Ken . Shirriff . May 2015 . 2020-05-29 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220615173952/https://www.righto.com/2015/05/the-texas-instruments-tmx-1795-first.html . 2022-06-15 . Even operating one bit at a time as a serial computer, the Datapoint 2200 performed considerably faster than the 8008 chip....
- Web site: MasPar: Massively Parallel Computers – 32 cores on a chip . 2014-09-05 . John . Culver . 2022-06-15 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220615173816/https://www.cpushack.com/2014/09/05/maspar-massively-parallel-computers-32-cores-on-a-chip/ . 2022-06-15.
- Web site: HP-15C CE woes: 1 bug, 2 limitations, 3 questions . Eric L. "Brouhaha" . Smith . 2023-08-09 . MoHPC - The Museum of HP Calculators . 2023-09-24 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230810144726/https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-20281.html . 2023-08-10.
- Book: Introduction to Computer Architecture . Thomas M. . Whitney . Thomas Whitney (computing) . Harold Stuart . Stone . Harold Stuart Stone . 1975 . 1 . Part I. Basic Computer Architecture. / Chapter 3. Introduction to Calculators: / 3-5. Example Systems / The Hewlett Packard HP-35 . Computer Sciences Series . Science Research Associates, Inc. (SRA) . ark:/13960/t8pc40t3q. Order-Code 13-4005 . 75-14016 . 0-574-18405-8 . 118–135 [123–135] . https://archive.org/details/introductiontoco00ston/page/123/mode/2up?view=theater . 2023-09-29 . 124 . […] The HP-35 is a totally serial computer. The adder is a BCD serial type […] The serial structure means less integrated circuit area must be allocated to interconnection lines and gating functions and an interesting trade off occurs. A bit-serial, digit-serial architecture is inherently one fourth the speed of a bit-parallel digit-serial structure […] But the basic clock rate for a bit-serial structure can sometimes be increased since additional area can be allocated for larger integrated devices that are necessary for greater speed. In the HP-35, the execution time of the most complex functions is under one second, while the serial architecture permits an increased circuit complexity. […] Instructions in the HP-35 are transferred serially from the active read-only memory to the arithmetic and control circuits and to other ROMs if present. […].
