Serial computer

A serial computer is 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 counterpart,^[1] but were, as a consequence, much slower.

Serial machines

• EDVAC — 1949
• BINAC — 1949
• SEAC — 1950
• UNIVAC I — 1951
• IBM 650 — 1954
• Elliott Brothers Elliott 153 — 1954
• Bendix G-15 — 1956
• LGP-30 — 1956
• Elliott Brothers Elliott 803 — 1958
• ZEBRA — 1958
• D-17B guidance computer — 1962
• PDP-8/S — 1966
• General Electric GE-PAC 4040 process control computer
• Motorola MC14500B
• PDP-14
• F14 CADC — 1970: transferred all data serially, but internally operated on many bits in parallel.^[2]

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:

• ICL Distributed Array Processor — 1979
• Goodyear MPP — 1983
• Connection Machine CM-1 — 1985
• Connection Machine CM-2 — 1987
• VIRAM1 computational RAM — 2003

References

1. Wilkes, Maurice Vincent (1956). Automatic digital computers. Wiley. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
2. Ray M. Holt. "Architecture Of A Microprocessor". p. 5, 7. quote: "the processor was designed to transfer data serially throughout the entire system. ... The Parallel Multiplier Unit ... by means of a parallel algorithm ..."