Parallel communication a time. If both channels operated at the same clock speed, the parallel channel would be eight times faster. A parallel channel may have additional conductors for other signals, such as a clock signal to pace the flow of data, a signal to control the direction of data flow, and handshaking signals. Parallel communication is and always has been widely used within integrated circuits, in peripheral buses, and in memory devices such as RAM. Computer system buses, on the other hand, have evolved over time: parallel communication was commonly used in earlier system buses, whereas serial communications are prevalent in
Serial port of the full standard: they traded off compatibility with the standard against the use of less costly and more compact connectors (in particular the DE-9 version used by the original IBM PC-AT). The desire to supply serial interface cards with two ports required that IBM reduce the size of the connector to fit onto a single card back panel. A DE-9 connector also fits onto a card with a second DB-25 connector. Starting around the time of the introduction of the IBM PC-AT, serial ports were commonly built with a 9-pin connector to save cost and space. However, presence of