Serial computer
Encyclopedia
A serial computer is typified by 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 counterpart, but were, as a consequence, much slower.
The first computer that was not serial (the first parallel computer) was the Whirlwind
- 1951.
Most of the early massive parallel processing machines were built out of individual serial processors, including
Bit
A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in one of two possible distinct states...
or digit
Numerical digit
A digit is a symbol used in combinations to represent numbers in positional numeral systems. The name "digit" comes from the fact that the 10 digits of the hands correspond to the 10 symbols of the common base 10 number system, i.e...
for each clock cycle
Clock signal
In electronics and especially synchronous digital circuits, a clock signal is a particular type of signal that oscillates between a high and a low state and is utilized like a metronome to coordinate actions of circuits...
. Machines with serial main storage devices such as acoustic or magnetostrictive delay lines
Delay line memory
Delay line memory was a form of computer memory used on some of the earliest digital computers. Like many modern forms of electronic computer memory, delay line memory was a refreshable memory, but as opposed to modern random-access memory, delay line memory was serial-access...
and rotating magnetic devices
Drum memory
Drum memory is a magnetic data storage device and was an early form of computer memory widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s, invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria....
were usually serial computers.
Serial computers required much less hardware than their parallel counterpart, but were, as a consequence, much slower.
Serial machines
- EDVACEDVACEDVAC was one of the earliest electronic computers. Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was a stored program computer....
– 1949 - BINACBINACBINAC, the Binary Automatic Computer, was an early electronic computer designed for Northrop Aircraft Company by the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in 1949. Eckert and Mauchly, though they had started the design of EDVAC at the University of Pennsylvania, chose to leave and start EMCC, the...
– 1949 - UNIVAC IUNIVAC IThe UNIVAC I was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC...
– 1951 - IBM 650IBM 650The IBM 650 was one of IBM’s early computers, and the world’s first mass-produced computer. It was announced in 1953, and over 2000 systems were produced between the first shipment in 1954 and its final manufacture in 1962...
– 1954 - Elliott BrothersElliott Brothers (computer company)-Elliott Brothers Ltd:Elliott Brothers Ltd was an early computer company of the 1950s–60s in the United Kingdom, tracing its descent from a firm of instrument makers founded by William Elliott in London around 1804. The research laboratories were based at Borehamwood, originally set up in...
Elliott 153 – 1954 - Bendix G-15Bendix G-15The Bendix G-15 computer was introduced in 1956 by the Bendix Corporation, Computer Division, Los Angeles, California. It was about 5 by 3 by 3 ft and weighed about 950 lb . The base system, without peripherals, cost $49,500. A working model cost around $60,000. It could also be rented for...
– 1956 - LGP-30LGP-30The LGP-30, standing for Librascope General Purpose and then Librascope General Precision, was an early off-the-shelf computer. It was manufactured by the Librascope company of Glendale, California , and sold and serviced by the Royal Precision Electronic Computer Company, a joint venture with the...
– 1956 - Elliott BrothersElliott Brothers (computer company)-Elliott Brothers Ltd:Elliott Brothers Ltd was an early computer company of the 1950s–60s in the United Kingdom, tracing its descent from a firm of instrument makers founded by William Elliott in London around 1804. The research laboratories were based at Borehamwood, originally set up in...
Elliott 803Elliott 803The Elliott 803 was a small, medium speed digital computer manufactured by the British company Elliott Brothers in the 1960s. About 250 were built and most British universities and colleges bought one.-History:...
– 1958 - ZEBRAZEBRA (computer)The ZEBRA was one of the first computers to be designed in the Netherlands, and one of the first Dutch computers to be commercially available...
– 1958 - D-17BD-17BThe D-17B is a computer used in missile guidance systems, specifically the Minuteman I NS-1OQ missile guidance system, which contains a D-17B computer, the associated stable platform, and power supplies. The D-17B weighs approximately , contains 1,521 transistors, 6,282 diodes, 1,116 capacitors,...
guidance computer – 1962 - PDP-8PDP-8The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of...
/S - 1966 - General Electric GE-PAC 4040 process control computer
- Motorola MC14500BMotorola MC14500BThe Motorola MC14500B Industrial Control Unit is a CMOS one-bit microprocessor designed for simple control applications. It is well-suited to the implementation of ladder logic, and thus could be used to replace relay systems and programmable logic controllers...
- PDP-14
The first computer that was not serial (the first parallel computer) was the Whirlwind
Whirlwind (computer)
The Whirlwind computer was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is the first computer that operated in real time, used video displays for output, and the first that was not simply an electronic replacement of older mechanical systems...
- 1951.
Most of the early massive parallel processing machines were built out of individual serial processors, including
- ICL Distributed Array Processor – 1979
- Goodyear MPPGoodyear MPPThe Goodyear Massively Parallel Processor was amassively parallel processing supercomputer built by Goodyear Aerospacefor the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.It was designed to deliver enormous computational power at lower cost than...
– 1983 - Connection MachineConnection MachineThe Connection Machine was a series of supercomputers that grew out of Danny Hillis' research in the early 1980s at MIT on alternatives to the traditional von Neumann architecture of computation...
CM-1 – 1985 - Connection Machine CM-2 – 1987
- VIRAM1 computational RAMComputational RAMComputational RAM or C-RAM is random access memory with processing elements integrated into the design. This enables C-RAM to be used as a SIMD computer...
– 2003