Parallel computing those that use concurrency, are more difficult to write than sequential ones, because concurrency introduces several new classes of potential software bugs, of which race conditions are the most common. Communication and synchronization between the different subtasks are typically some of the greatest obstacles to getting good parallel program performance. A theoretical upper bound on the speed-up of a single program as a result of parallelization is given by Amdahl's law. Traditionally, computer software has been written for serial computation. To solve a problem, an algorithm is constructed and implemented as a serial stream of instructions. These instructions are executed
Eagle Computer of the clamshell was the reset button, two RS-232 serial ports labeled "Serial A" and "Serial B", a Centronics parallel port labeled "Parallel A", a SASI port labeled "Parallel B", the brightness knob for the monitor, and the on/off switch. The keyboard was well-designed. The keys were black with white lettering. Besides a full typewriter keyboard, there was a complete ten-key number pad on the right, uncommon at that time. Labels on the "front" of the number keys of the typewriter keyboard, and all the keys of the number pad, denoted what function those keys performed in the command mode