What is Serial: Definition and 73 Discussions

In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are sent as a whole, on a link with several parallel channels.
Serial communication is used for all long-haul communication and most computer networks, where the cost of cable and synchronization difficulties make parallel communication impractical. Serial computer buses are becoming more common even at shorter distances, as improved signal integrity and transmission speeds in newer serial technologies have begun to outweigh the parallel bus's advantage of simplicity (no need for serializer and deserializer, or SerDes) and to outstrip its disadvantages (clock skew, interconnect density). The migration from PCI to PCI Express is an example.

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  1. K

    Does this serial dilution question make sense?

    "You have a sample with a concentration of 1x106 bacteria/ml and you wish to know how many of these bacteria are viable. You dilute the sample down to a single bacterium/ml and plate 100 microliters of this diluted sample onto an agar dish. After incubating the dish for two weeks you count...
  2. B

    Question about Serial communication (RS422 standard) and conversion

    This is my first post. I am an aerospace engineer so these very technical computer questions still elude me. My question is mostly about RS422 standard. I have a piece of equipment (LIDAR) that is able to transmit data via a 9 pin serial port. If you put a jumper across two of the pins it...
  3. K

    Parallel to Serial Conversion: IC 74165 & 2 Clock Purpose

    hi, may i know how to control IC 74165? What is the purpose of this 2 clock? i need a IC which can transfer 8 bit data from parallel to serial, got any suggestion?
  4. M

    Serial connection: two transformers

    Good afternoon! To build a serial connection of two transformers, four coils are used: Two of this coils have n1 turning, two of them have n2 turnings. The coils are built together in the way, you can see on this picture: http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/2698/transformer.jpg The...
  5. J

    MATLAB Serial Port Communication in Matlab

    Hi, I have a cooler and a pressure gauge which I need to operate from Matlab. Both devices are connected to the computer via a serial port. I've been using the Matlab Instument Toolbox Test & Measurement tool to try and communicate with these machines. The problem is that I don't get any data...
  6. Loren Booda

    The most elusive serial killer

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,615608,00.html"
  7. G

    How can I write a MS DOS program for serial communication with a stepper driver?

    Hi and thanks for your help I have a table in Excel spreadsheet which is containing data to motor through a stepper driver I can convert this spreadshhet by save as CSV file, the problem I have know is to write a programme in MS DOS throgh windows to send this CSV file to the serial port and...
  8. N

    Serial Vs. Parallel data transmission

    Homework Statement Why is serial data transmission preferred over parallel transmission when needing to transmit data over vast distances? Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution I think this has many different reasons...but I'm trying to pinpoint important ones. -I think...
  9. T

    Using National Instruments LabView as Oscilloscope via Serial Cable

    Hi everybody, I have a very simple question for programmers and automation professionals, My friend told me that I can use the program National Instruments LabView as an Oscilloscope through the serial cable! Is this true? and what are the limits of this advantage? I'm using this...
  10. L

    Hooke's Law, three serial springs

    Hello all, newbie here Google led me to this thread: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=70094" which happens to be basically my question. I am doing an investigation on Hooke's Law for my VCE Physics class (Australian year 12, senior school). Thanks to wikipedia's derivation...
  11. D

    Is There a Solution for High-Speed Data Transfer Using RS-232 Serial Port?

    Hi I am using RS-232 connection to may FPGA, and I want to send information from matlap. Whan I set may VHDL program to the defult seting of the RS-232 which have 9600 bit/sec, then may FPGA show the data correctly. but whan I change the VHDL program and the matlap seting to anthor...
  12. J

    Bidirectional isolator for three-wire serial bus?

    Hello All, I have a circuit that uses a microcontroller to communicate via a three-wire serial line (SPI) to a DDS chip to send and receive commands and status information. My question is that if the DDS IC happens to be on a different board and I want to galvanically isolate them from each...
  13. I

    Strange serial port output problem

    Hello, I've been writing a program to communicate with an embedded system via rs485 The protocol in use utilizes stick parity, where stick parity is defined as the first byte (which corresponds to the address of the device) having its parity bit set to 1, and the rest of a packet have its...
  14. J

    Routing data from the Serial port to ICs

    Hello All, I am currently trying to figure out how to program the AD9959 IC using a serial connection to my PC. From reading through the datasheet for this chip, I learned that it uses the serial SPI interface to send and receive instructions and data. This chip has four channels of DDS...
  15. I

    Troubleshooting ASCII Character Transmission in VB for RS232 Communication

    Hello all, I am trying to communicate with a rs232 device using VB. however, testing my program by using hypterminal, I noticed that any time I try to output an ascii character 128 or higher, it shows up as a '?' instead of the desired character. I know hypterminal is able to display...
  16. G

    Why Doesn't stdaux Exist When Programming Serial Ports in C?

    In my C book it says that the serial port is stdaux, but when I make a program to send data to stdaux the compiler (Dev-C++ in Windows and gcc in linux) says that stdaux doesn't exist :frown: Can anyone explain or point me toward a good tutorial about using the serial ports in C? Thanks
  17. hitssquad

    Alleged serial killer says 'I enjoy the excitement of Quake'

    http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.games.quake2/browse_thread/thread/1d6dc376e18d45dd/2349c966ae469fb5#2349c966ae469fb5 For those who do not know, this is Joseph "Jet" Duncan: planethuff.com/darkside
  18. S

    Connecting Serial Port Joystick to USB

    I have an old serial port joystick but no serial port on my computer i am pretty sure there is a way to connect the serial port to a usb adapter does anyone know how to do this? thanks
  19. R

    Calculating Cutoff Frequency with Oscilloscope and Coaxial Cable

    First take a look at the attachment (See reply below). We have to take the oscilloscope's impedance and the coaxial cable's impedance into account. And then we have to calculate the cutoff frequency of this. Given: Oscilloscope: R=1M Ohm // C=25pF Coaxial Cable: R=75 Ohm and C=68pF/m...
  20. T

    Serial Killers: What factors cause them to BE?

    Is it possible for a baby to be born with the Genetic makeup that will cause that child to grow into being a serial killer? Possible but probably not very probable. Did a lousy childhood bring this behavior about? Good possibility. But what could be other causes to bring about such an...
  21. Antonio Lao

    How Does Time Geometry Affect the Concept of Event Simultaneity in Relativity?

    The Nobel Laureate P.W. Bridgman commented on Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. He said that more analyses should be given to the events of the theories rather than analytical attacks on the coordinate system used in specifying the physical events found in the theories...
  22. Pyrite

    Serial Experiments Lain: Amazing Anime Series

    Is anyone else here a big fan of the anime series "Serial Experiments Lain"? personally, i think it rocks, though it also manages to make The Matrix series look simple and straightforeward in comparison.
  23. B

    Serial ATA Hard Drives -What's up with that?

    I saw an advertisement claiming 1.5Gbps could be obtained from this new? hard drive technology. Sounds pretty fast to me. Anybody have one or know more about it? Will it be a cornerstone for the next wave of computer advancement?
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