Question about register and serial transmission

[aexpert999]

I have a question but I m not really sure if I can picture it correctly.Well,if I think that the data the input bus of a register are serially transmitted to it,one after another,I can't figure out how the register,which is implemented by separate Bits with every one having its own input and output,can understand how to store the first bit in Bit0,the second in Bit1 etc.Maybe I m thinking wrong,in terms of a single wire vs multiple inputs or is there something else?Or maybe its a parallel transmission?I suppose for the register to load in a clock tock 16-bits simultaneously,there must be a bus with 16 wires?

[cadet1620]

For a computer like Hack, all the data transfers are over parallel buses.  There are 16 individual wires so the bus simultaneously carries all 16 bits to their appropriate bit within the register.

To start learning about serial data transfer, google for UART.

--Mark

[aexpert999]

So,when saying for a computer like Hack,you mean that parallel transmission is implemented in most general purpose computers?That's what I understand,after googling also for UART.I m intrested in this topic because i m an electrical engineer.Thank you.

[cadet1620]

Yes, parallel transfer is used for most data transfer, especially in speed critical areas like main memory systems. Serial transfer is more often used in I/O systems. USB, Firewire, SATA are all serial. There are also two common serial interfaces, I2C and SPI, that are used to communicate within computers between processors and peripheral chips like timers and EEPROMs.

--Mark