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 serial ports in a PC. The only limitation is the amount of resources, such as operating memory and computing power, needed to emulate many serial ports at the same time. Virtual serial ports emulate all hardware serial port functionality, including baud rate, data bits, parity bits, stop bits, etc. Additionally, they allow controlling the data flow, emulating all signal lines (DTR, DSR, CTS, RTS, DCD, and RI) and customizing pinout. Virtual serial ports are common with Bluetooth and are the standard way of receiving data from Bluetooth-equipped GPS modules. Virtual serial port emulation can be useful in case there is