Serial may refer to:

Arts, entertainment, and media

The presentation of works in sequential segments

Serial (literature) In literature, a serial is a printing or publishing format by which a single larger work Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** Manual labour, physica ...

, serialised literature in print *

Serial (publishing) In publishing and library and information science, the term serial is applied to materials "in any medium issued under the same title in a succession of discrete parts, usually numbered (or dated) and appearing at regular or irregular intervals wi ...

, periodical publications and newspapers *

Serial (radio and television) In television program, television and radio programming, a serial is a show that has a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode-by-episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even t ...

, series of radio and television programs that rely on a continuing plot *

Serial film A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a film, motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater ...

, a series of short subjects, with a continuing story, originally shown in theaters, in conjunction with feature films, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s *

Indian serial Indian television drama (in Indian English Indian serials) are television programs written, produced, and filmed in India, with characters played by Indians and episodes broadcast on Indian television. India's first television drama was '' Hum ...

, a type of Indian television program

Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media

* ''Serial'' (1980 film), based on McFadden's novel, starring Martin Mull and Tuesday Weld * ''Serial'' (podcast), a podcast spinoff of the radio series ''This American Life'' * ''

The Serial ''The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County'' (often referred to as ''The Serial'') is a satirical novel about Marin County, California, written by Cyra McFadden. Beginning in 1976, the book's chapters had been serialized in the Marin Co ...

: A Year in the Life of Marin County'', a 1977 novel by Cyra McFadden

Computing and technology

SerDes {{Use American English, date = March 2019 A Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) is a pair of functional blocks commonly used in high speed communications to compensate for limited input/output. These blocks convert data between serial data and paral ...

, a Serializer/Deserializer (pronounced sir-deez) *

Serial ATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard t ...

* Serial attached SCSI *

Serial bus In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are ...

, e.g., **

I²C I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit, ), alternatively known as I2C or IIC, is a synchronous, multi-controller/multi-target (master/slave), packet switched, single-ended, serial communication bus invented in 1982 by Philips Semiconductors. It is wi ...

** 1-Wire **

Serial Peripheral Interface Bus The Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a synchronous serial communication interface specification used for short-distance communication, primarily in embedded systems. The interface was developed by Motorola in the mid-1980s and has become a ...

(SPI) **

UNI/O The UNI/O bus is an asynchronous serial bus created by Microchip Technology for low speed communication in embedded systems. The bus uses a master/slave configuration, requiring one signal to pass data between devices. The first devices supp ...

Serial cable A serial cable is a cable used to transfer information between two devices using a serial communication protocol. The form of connectors depends on the particular serial port used. A cable wired for connecting two DTEs directly is known as a nu ...

, a cable used to transfer information between two devices using a serial communication protocol *

Serial computer A serial computer is a computer typified by bit-serial architecture i.e., internally operating on one bit or digit for each clock cycle. Machines with serial main storage devices such as acoustic or magnetostrictive delay lines and rotating ma ...

, a computer typified by its bit-serial architecture **

Bit-serial architecture In digital logic applications, bit-serial architectures send data one bit at a time, along a single wire, in contrast to bit-parallel word architectures, in which data values are sent all bits or a word at once along a group of wires. All di ...

, a 1-bit processor or CPU architecture with a 1-bit instruction set and microarchitecture *

Serial communication In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are ...

, the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus **

Asynchronous serial communication Asynchronous serial communication is a form of serial communication in which the communicating endpoints' interfaces are not continuously synchronized by a common clock signal. Instead of a common synchronization signal, the data stream contai ...

Synchronous serial communication Synchronous serial communication describes a serial communication protocol in which "data is sent in a continuous stream at constant rate." Synchronous communication requires that the clocks in the transmitting and receiving devices are ''synchr ...

Serial port In computing, a serial port is a serial communication interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one bit at a time. This is in contrast to a parallel port, which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in parallel. ...

Serial SCSI A SCSI connector ( ) is used to connect computer parts that use a system called SCSI to communicate with each other. Generally, two connectors, designated male and female, plug together to form a connection which allows two components, such as a ...

, serial SCSI disk-drives *

Universal Serial Bus Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

, also known as USB

Other uses

Serial code A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it. Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...

or serial number *

Serial comma In English-language punctuation, a serial comma (also called a series comma, Oxford comma, or Harvard comma) is a comma placed immediately after the penultimate term (i.e., before the coordinating conjunction, such as ''and'' or ''or'') in a s ...

Serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

Serial relation In set theory a serial relation is a homogeneous relation expressing the connection of an element of a sequence to the following element. The successor function used by Peano to define natural numbers is the prototype for a serial relation. Bertra ...

in mathematics, a binary relation ''R'' that relates every ''x'' to some ''y''

Arts, entertainment, and media

The presentation of works in sequential segments

Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media

Computing and technology

Other uses

See also