Bandwidth
Serial
- single wire to trasmit information one bit at a time
- requires synchronization between sender and receiver
- sometimes includes extra wires for clock and/or handshaking
- good for inexpensive connections (e.g., terminals)
- good for long-distance connections (e.g., LANs)
- examples: RS-232, Ethernet, Apple desktop bus (ADB), Philips inter-integrated circuit bus (I2C), USB, Firewire, IrDA
Parallel
- multiple wires to transmit information one byte or word at a time
- good for high-bandwidth requirements (CPU to disk)
- more expensive wiring/connectors/current requirements
- examples: SCSI, PCI bus (PC), NuBus (Mac), PCMCIA