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Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware Software Interface: Student Edition
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by David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy
Sales Rank: 793138
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$6.69
At Amazon
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Paperback: 1000 pages
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc,US; International Ed edition 1997
ISBN-10: 155860491X
ISBN-13: 978-1558604919
Product Dimensions:
9.3 x 7.4 x 1.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
Customer Reviews & Comments
This review is from: Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (Hardcover)
Rather than being a boring, bland and dry text, COMPUTER ORGANIZATION & DESIGN is a well-written and very informative introduction to many hardware and software fundamentals that should be known by anyone with interest in this field. It's a little wordier than it probably could be, but I found the style of the writing to be a great help at teaching myself these sometimes obscure topics. It succeeds at being both a teacher and a reference book. The authors had the clever idea of introducing many of the concepts from a historical perspective, tracing the beginnings of ideas up to their current implementations. This makes the narrative much less dry than it could have been (let's face it, hardware design isn't exactly riveting material) but makes for a great introduction. The reader gets to see the concepts develop from simpler ideas into the more complicated set-ups of today. Putting the models into that context makes the more difficult concepts easier to grasp. Some discussion concerning this text has revolved around its wordiness. Certainly the book goes into more detail than it probably needs to, and takes longer than necessary to explain certain topics. But to the student or reader encountering these details for the first time, this approach can be extremely rewarding. I found this book to be an excellent teacher. While it took a little bit of time for me to read, it was quite up to the task of clearly and simply explaining the concepts at hand. Each chapter has a section on Fallacies and Pitfalls, which I found particularly helpful. They take a number of the most commonly held misconceptions about the material in that chapter, and clearly and carefully explain why such things aren't true. I found that a lot of what they covered were things that I had either misconstrued or was unclear about so this section was invaluable for me. As reference material, the book covers Processor Performance, Microinstructions, Arithmetic (covers binary and floating-point operations done on the MIPS processor), Processor Pipelining, I/O Interfaces, Multiprocessing, and various other MIPS related subjects. If you looking for something that's primarily reference material, you could probably find a text out there that's a bit more concise. But if you're a little rusty on some of these concepts or are encountering them for the first time, then you could do a lot worse than to teach yourself from this book.
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Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware Software Interface: Student Edition
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Price: $6.69
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