Product Description
Thoroughly Revised And Updated, The Essentials Of Computer Organization And Architecture, Second Edition Is A Comprehensive Resource That Addresses All Of The Necessary Organization And Architecture Topics Yet Is Concise Enough To Move Through In A Single Semester.The Text Covers Such Topics As Digital Logic, Data Representation, Machine-Level Language, General Organization, Assembly Language Programming, CPU Organization, Memory Organization, And Input/Output Devices, As Well As A New Chapter On Embedded Systems.Correlated To The ACM-IEEE Computing Curricula Guidelines, The Essentials Of Computer Organization And Architecture Is The Forefront Text For Your Computer Organization And Architecture Course. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

It's a book...
Exactly what the professor told us to get... So far the book has been an easy read and plenty of good examples.

Clear and very comprehensive.
Well written and nicely organized and structured. It's clear and comprehensive, while still covering a lot of topics. Excellent book for students. Also has an answer and hints section at the end. Students will appreciate it.

Required textbook, but pretty decent
I was required to purchase this textbook for a class, but it is still pretty good.The explanations are pretty clear and they do them a few times in a few different ways to help really get the feel for them.Engineering books like this can be fairly boring, but this one mixes in some real world examples and case studies which helps.

The exercises are pretty good, but I wished the answers for at least some of them were offered.

Informative
I personally liked this text.
It is not perfect, and some sections should be more elaborated, but otherwise it is rather informative.
Covers boolean algebra, logic gates, memory organization, and many other good things.
It can't be read quickly. You will have to spend time to read carefully.

Positive: for the most part questions for each chapter can be answered based on information in the book. In my life I have encountered text where there were NO way questions could be answered based solely on the info in the text. So, if you getting this text for class, it is good news.

Negative: I feel that some sections could be elaborated more with further examples. For instance binary divisions and multiplications would be better with couple more examples.

I feel like I didn't waste time reading it, so you too could learn something from it (unless of course you already know the subject well...).

Not a great book for self study
I am a college student and this book was the required text for the class. My problems with the book are. It was a very dry and boring read. As such, I found it very hard to attempt to read a chapter. Additionally, harder concepts are not adequately covered. The book just describes it and then goes on to another concept without attempting to explain it another way. In my opinion, the authors wrote the book in this manner-this is how it works or what it does, here some useful facts about who uses it or it uses, and next topic. Then it includes questions in the back of the book that are hard to answer because the textbook doesn't cover how to attempt a problem like it. That being said there is a student solutions manual which I didn't know about when I took the course. The biggest problem with the book is it expects you to have a good teacher accompained it and I was bascially using that text only to learn about computer organization and architecture. (My professor put me to sleep and had a hard time explaining things sensibly) As such, I recommend this book if it's not being used for self-study and has a good teacher to accompany it. Then the book would probaley be very helpful. It is very detailed-The book does try to cover alot of material from other computer science courses you have taken but the refresher is often needed especailly if you are teaching yourself. ... Read more

Product Description
KEY BENEFIT: Learn the fundamentals of processor and computer design from the newest edition of this award winning text. KEY TOPICS: Introduction; Computer Evolution and Performance; A Top-Level View of Computer Function and Interconnection; Cache Memory; Internal Memory Technology; External Memory; I/O; Operating System Support; Computer Arithmetic; Instruction Sets: Characteristics and Functions; Instruction Sets: Addressing Modes and Formats; CPU Structure and Function; RISCs; Instruction-Level Parallelism and Superscalar Processors; Control Unit Operation; Microprogrammed Control; Parallel Processing; Multicore Architecture. Online Chapters: Number Systems; Digital Logic; Assembly Language, Assemblers, and Compilers; The IA-64 Architecture. MARKET: Ideal for professionals in computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

One of the worst texts I have been forced to use.
I am noticing a pattern with this publisher. Poorly organized text books, that provide little insight, yet take many pages with irrelevant diversions. Rather than present a theoretical basis and build on it with examples, it consists of examples, and unrelated scraps of information, that build to confusion without understanding. One of the worst texts I have been forced to use.

Good material - poor presentation
I'm a college professor and used this book for a class.I wish I could give this book a better rating because it does have more good, current information in it than any other book I've seen.Unfortunately, this information is presented in such a condensed, high-level and (sometimes) incomplete manner that's it's frequently very difficult to understand.The author needs to spend more time explaining the concepts he presents.He needs to give more examples, simpler examples and more detailed examples.There need to be more end of chapter exercises and the exercises need to be less ambiguous and more closely related to the material in the chapter.For a beginning course in computer architecture, this book is too high level.Another downside for using the book is that all of the exercise and test solutions are available on the internet.This essentially renders them useless for assessment.

Tough,..... but thorough.
I guess the reviews here says it all already. The text is though to read, and hard to comprehend. Perhaps too technical, or too much (?) details, or not well enoguh structured. Or perhaps it's written in a classic (old-time) style, which does not appeal to todays student/reader. Altough it covers all the classic material and it does have several good figures. High priced. Too much details, too much text, too overwhelming. Students (beginner) may have a though time studying with this book. It might depend just on what course you are following or why you picked up this book. Perhaps it's too overwhelming for most of todays type of studyprograms, where a more general, less deep technical knowledge, of computer is required. It's probably more suiteable for a more classical computer science course, where technical details are expected. But still, with an experienced isntructor to guide the students through the study process, and provide explanation where needed. Also you need enough time, be highly motivated, and seriously interested in the subject. For a less technical approach, or for self study, this book might be too (?) time consuming to read/study. In that case I'd rather recommend The Essentials of Computer Organization And Architecture.

Decent material, absolutely terrible questions.
This is by far the worst textbook I've had yet in college. The material is more of a broad, vague reference that teaches you the basics of the material. This wouldn't be so bad if the questions were the same way. The questions are the most in depth and ridiculous things I've ever seen in a textbook. They require a deep, grad-student level understanding to answer them correctly. If I were you, I would Google "Computer Organization and Architecture 7th edition solution manual" to find a free solution manual. The questions are mostly the same in the 7th edition as they are in the 8th and it helps you to see how useless this book is. Shame on you William Stallings. Don't get this if you don't have to!

This author should stick to computers and leave writing to the pros...
Downright awful book. This book assumes a LOT of knowledge and even then, it's still incomprehensible. My professor has a masters in computer science and he admitted he didn't understand most of the diagrams and questions in the book. There are very poor examples, sometimes no examples at all. The book is laughably bad as far as typos go. I have never seen, in my entire life, a book, let alone a college textbook, with as many typos as this book. There are some obvious typos and then there are some questions where part of the question is completely missing from the book! My professor had to tell us the part of the question that was missing! He only found out because the author has a giant list of typos available on his horrible, eye wrenching, ear piercing pre-Y2K website. And this is his EIGHTH edition!!! This was the third different book my professor has tried in his past three semesters and he said that he definitely was not going to use this book again.In fact, he's basically decided to teach all of us himself, with his own diagrams and other online resources, (read: FREE) including an awesome, freely available Computer Organization textbook (search David Tarnoff.) TO ALL PROFESSORS AND TEACHERS OUT THERE: Please, please, please save you and your students time, trouble, headaches and money and stay far, far away from this abomination of a book.To the author/publisher/non-existent editor: please, you should just get out of the textbook business right now.No, in fact, you should just stop writing, period.Be honorable, step down/away and stop gouging students and teachers. ... Read more

Product Description
Building on his pioneering work on the management of technology and innovation in his first book, Managing the Flow of Technology, Thomas J. Allen of MIT has joined with award-winning German architect Gunter Henn of HENN Architekten to produce a book that explores the combined use of two management tools to make the innovation process most effective: organizational structure and physical space. They present research demonstrating how organizational structure and physical space each affect communication among people-in this case, engineers, scientists, and others in technical organizations-and they illustrate how organizations can transform both to increase the transfer of technical knowledge and maximize the "communication for inspiration" that is central to the innovation process. Allen and Henn illustrate their points with discussions of well-known buildings around the world, including Audi's corporate headquarters, Steelcase's corporate design center, and the Corning Glass Becker building, as well as several of Gunter Henn's own projects, including the Skoda automotive factory in the Czech Republic and the Faculty for Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich. Allen and Henn then demonstrate the principles developed in their work by discussing in detail one example in which organizational structure and physical space were combined successfully to promote innovation with impressive results: HENN Architekten's Project House for the BMW Group Research and Innovation Centre in Munich, cited by Business Week (April 24, 2006) in naming BMW one of the world's most innovative companies.

Professor Thomas Allen is the originator of the Allen curve. In the late 1970s, Tom Allen undertook a project to determine how the distance between engineers' offices coincided with the level of regular technical communication between them. The results of that research, now known as the Allen Curve, revealed a distinct correlation between distance and frequency of communication (i.e. the more distance there is between people - 50 meters or more to be exact - the less they will communicate). This principle has been incorporated into forward-thinking commercial design ever since, in, for example, The Decker Engineering Building in New York, the Steelcase Corporate Development Center in Michigan, and BMW's Research Center in Germany.

*Professor Allen of MIT is known worldwide for "the Allen curve" which is taught and cited in all management literature about innovation
*Gunter Henn is a renowned architect in Germany known for his innovative industrial building designs such as BMW projecthaus and the Skoda factory
*Shows in clear terms--based on actual research and implementation--how managers can organize the work, workers, and their physical space to maximize the potential for innovation ... Read more

Product Description
25755-0 The revolutionary guide to architecting your entire organization!*Modeling your entire organization for maximum effectiveness *Architecture-in-the-large and architecture-in-the-small *Harnessing tacit knowledge and learning *Practical guidelines for implementing your modelsNow, go beyond modeling your software and your processes: model your entire organization for maximum competitive advantage. Organization Modeling: Innovative Architectures for the 21st Century introduces the revolutionary discipline of object-oriented organization modeling, combining today's most sophisticated approaches to IT modeling with the latest advances in organization and management frameworks. Discover powerful new tools for modeling-and transforming-your organization's environment, goals, processes, information and knowledge resources, structure, technology, even culture.Coverage includes:*Why it's dangerous to think of today's IT models as "business models" *How to create and align small-scale "organization molecules" into effective enterprise-wide architectures *Envisioning organizational patterns *Integrating data, knowledge, and informationWhether you're an executive, IT planner, analyst, software professional, or student of management, if you want to improve your organization's effectiveness, you finally have a disciplined, systematic framework for doing so: Organization Modeling. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Organization Modeling: Innovative Architectures for the 21st Century
Hola soy estudiante de la Maestria en Administracion de TI, y este libro me parecio excelente ya que abarca diferentes aspectos organizacioneles con un punto de vista tecnolgico

Creative and innovative advanced book
An excellent framework for learning about how to balance (organizational) mission, vision, business, strategy, organizational learning, processes, and culture. Truly visionary book that elucidates concepts concerning processes, learning, knowledge, human, and strategies. I found the book to be an excellent framework for understanding the world of organizations.
I think that almost all MBA and graduate business students will deepen their knowledge and skills by thouroughly exploring this book.Even, Mintzburg has applied some of these authors concepts!

Looking foward to using this book
I am a graduate MIS student who hadc to buy this book for my course in Organizational Design.I started reading this book and found it to be very rich and innovative in terms of what an organization is and how to design the organization using an organization modeling (OM) framework. I could not believe what
vision and insight the authors had into the world of organizations.Some of the fascinating and useful ideas that they have invented are about the organizational knowledgeworld, how to balance vision, mission, business, strategy, tools, organiational molecules which can be used ot represent the formal and creative aspects of organizational domains, (early and late) knowledge binding (when, where and by whom is knowledge applied to a process, etc. This book is concept rich, deep, purposeful, and relative to my future as an oganizatinal strategist. Numerous good tables, diagrams, and illustrations of their ideas and practical applications.
Truly a pioneering book. Good job Stevens profs.

not really helpful
I thought I had hit a goldmine but not so.
It's too abstract, too boring, I miss examples.

Models should be helpful, not a goal into itself. Maybe this has some illusionary appeal to managerial types.

I gladly refer to Dilbert's comics, if you want something helpful.

Review of text/reference-- Organization Modeling: Innovative Architectures for the 21st Century
Our book is about organizational architecture and design. The intended audience includes managers and IT professionals, and graduate students of management and MIS. In addition, this book may serve as a reference for research topics - it has become popular as a resource for Master's and Ph.D. students. One hundred years ago Frederick Winslow Taylor engineered work with engineering disciplines and thus created the 20th century design discipline of Scientific Management. In this book we architect work with modeling concepts and thus create the 21st century design practice of Organization Modeling. The analytical disciplines we choose to employ are those associated with the software engineering field: contracts and object-orientation. Our central innovation is the concept of an organization molecule. An organization molecule is the building block of design. It is a managed collection of well known management concepts or domains, such as business process, information, culture, knowledge, structure, strategy, etc. - one molecule for each type of organizational domain or management concept. We may use a molecule to design a domain and create an architecture-in-the-small. Similarly, we may align several molecules into organizational patterns, creating an architecture-in-the-large. Such patterns are at the heart of an organization's competitive distinctiveness. Organization Modeling may be seen as an MIS as well as an organizational design discipline. The industrial era is giving way to the knowledge era. The industrial era organization is characterized by information processing and therefore emphasizes data creators, routine work and a machine culture. In contrast, the knowledge organization is characterized by learning, and therefore emphasizes knowledge creators, nonroutine work, and innovative cultures. The knowledge organization requires an architecture where the three domains of data, information and knowledge are clearly distinguished - designing knowledge work requires a careful intermingling of all three. Hence, we devote a great deal of attention to the architectural models underlying all three domains and how they are interrelated. This brings forth fresh design constructs such as a knowledge contract, and a whole new approach to the meaning of a business system. Finally, we advance a core organizational architecture for a successful 21st century organization, one that emphasizes culture, business processes, data, information, knowledge, people, and learning. The authors are members of the faculty at Stevens Institute of Technology. They teach in the executive information management programs at such firms as AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Solomon Smith Barney, PaineWebber, Prudential, and Pearson Education, among others. ... Read more

Product Description
An effective security plan recognizes the importance of every component within the Information Security Architecture (ISA). Information Security Architecture, Second Edition describes each of these components in detail and outlines the steps necessary to establish an integrated and effective ISA. This new edition of a bestseller keeps the focus on developing the architecture and adds additional information and detail to each chapter for execution of the architecture. The "Getting started" section has been improved with custom planning templates. The book adds newer concepts such as HoneyPots, Business Continuity Planning, and Disaster Recovery Planning. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Book is a good foundation upon which to build a security architecture
Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and other structures. Using some creative license, it also encompasses the design of any entity, including information systems and their security components. But while no one would build a building without an architect, IT departments routinely design computer systems without considering the security architecture, instead believing that firewalls and other devices are quick and durable fixes.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In Information Security Architecture, author Jan Killmeyer Tudor shows that an effective and comprehensive information security infrastructure is best developed within the framework of an information security architecture (ISA), given today's distributed nature of client/server computing. In the past, when systems were closed and proprietary, security wasn't as compelling a need as it is in today's open systems.

The book covers important ISA issues such as the nature of the organization, policies and standards, baselines and risk assessment, awareness and training, compliance, and more. An underlying message is that these components must work in concert to form a cohesive ISA. Hardware and software are ineffective if they are not integrated into the ISA.

A dominant theme throughout is that implementing security technologies requires an understanding not only of the technologies' return on investment to the organization but also of the risks and vulnerabilities related to these technologies. This ISA methodology gives security professionals an excellent method for achieving just that.

Given how important policy is to an ISA, the book has several appendices that include policies, procedures, and work plans. These provide a fine foundation upon which to build a security architecture.

Is there a lower rating available?
As a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, I can definitively state that this book does not cover everything that needs to be covered or in any depth whatsoever. I got this book based on the glowing reviews I found here, and I'm at a loss as to why these reviews would have recommended it.

The most aggrevating part about this book is the subtitle "An Integrated Approach to Security in the Organization." The book not only lacks effective security integration techniques, it doesn't seem to address the entire organization where it tries its half-hearted integration.

Unrealistic Drivel
I question the security background of any of those who read this book and gave it a good review. The author's approach security leaves huge gaps and what is covered is written in a simplistic form... probably because the author only understands a small amount of the topic she is writing about.

I question the author's own ability to secure an environment, and she should probably not be teaching others.

Information Security Architechture by Jan Tudor
I am a CSS student with the College of North Atlantic, St.John's
, Newfoundland. I think that Jan Tudor has put together the "manual" for security within the buisness structure. I am amazed at the debt and scope of this book as there is no stone unturned andinformation technology people would be at a loss not to read and understand just how security or the lack of it can make or break a buisness, large or small.A true work of art, thanks Jan.

THOROUGH REFERENCE GUIDE
This was a great reference to start an Information Security Architecture project.There are many guidelines, procedures and forms that take the guess work out of the administration of such a project.The book is great at keeping you on track with your security objectives. I have found that it is so easy with such large projects to lose sight of the objectives.Security is not only technical assessments of the network and operatingcomponents but also a combination of management and administration of personnel, policies and procedures and continuous application of pressure to meeting the security requirements of an organization.This book providesexcellent value for the price. ... Read more

Product Description
A Comprehensive, Proven Approach to IT Scalability from Two Veteran Software, Technology, and Business Executives

Customer Reviews (12)

A pick for any library catering to web programmers
A pick is Martin L. Abbott and Michael T. Fisher's THE ART OF SCALABILITY: SCALABLE WEB ARCHITECTURE, PROCESSES, AND ORGANIZATIONS FOR THE MODERN ENTERPRISE is a pick for any library catering to web programmers. It tells how to build processes for scale, optimizing performance and planning for rapid data growth and new data centers. It isn't just about technology - it's about processes, people, and the entire issue of scalability at all levels.

Out of touch with reality
1. An excerpt from page 13:
"...if a single person can produce 1.0 unit of work in a given timeframe, a two-person organization might produce 1.99 units of the same work in the same timeframe. Each person's output was slightly reduced and while the team produced more overall, each person produced slightly less on an individual basis. The resulting relative loss of .01 units of work in the aforementioned timeframe represents the inefficiencies caused by coordination and communication."

So the authors think communication/collaboration overhead between two people results in just 1% loss of productivity?? anyone who has worked in the trenches know this is flat out lie. Did they read the classic "the mythical man month"? Probably not.

2. Another one from page 89:
"management is ... the judicious and ethical use of means to accomplish an end." Why ethics? Today, more than ever, we need managers and actions that show concern for the wealth of the shareholders of our companies.

Jeez, don't they realize that in this day and age, "personal success is everything", only a fool would put shareholder value ahead of his own personal gain.

This sort of meaningless pompous statements are everywhere. These charlatans are truly disgusting.

My Current Operations Bible
I became aware of this book through Abbott's website [...] and found it extremely useful.

I use it as my operations bible and refer frequently to it whenever a specific subject comes to mind. The chapters are independent to the extent that if you have a general idea of service operations in a technical environment, can easily zoom in a specific subject and not miss the point.

Really pragmatic, without all the theoretical fat you find on some related books.

Really recommend it to whoever has to put a service IT organization in good operational shape, specially a fast-growing company.

Fantastic and Accessible
As a software engineer and technical manager, I have seen my share of computer professionals who throw on sapphire robes and cloud the air with shapes and noise, all designed to preserve their own position in an organization as the mystical wizards and keepers of the dark secrets of their own black arts.

This book serves as a talisman against that kind of mumbo-jumbo. It's a clearly-written and well-organized guide that's aimed at a broad audience.

Remove the giant Win32 programming bricks and half the O'Reilly library -- and the big red .NET Unleashed volume -- from your library and make space for this book.

It's both a great reference, and a great linear read.

Abbott and Fisher have done us a great service by penning this book.

Excellent Book with Practical Information
The Art of Scalability is an excellent book, written by some guys that know A LOT about scaling technology and organizations. These were the guys that scaled the infrastructure at eBay to support massive growth in the late 90s through the mid 2000s. The book focuses on people, process, and technology - ALL of which are critical to building a scalable company. Some folks write books purely focused on the technical aspect of scaling a business, which I think misses most of the picture. Yes there are certain technical design principles that are critical such as scale out, not up, implement caching, etc. The point is that if you hire and fire the right people and implement correct processes you have a much greater chance to implement the appropriate technology infrastructure to support a high-growth business. What really elevates this book from others is that it is not too abstract when talking about people and process. They provide detailed examples of what a post mortem meeting agenda should be and who should attend, what the role of the problem manager should be, etc.

ON the technical side of the equation, they spend a lot of time discussing design principles and architecture trade-offs. This includes when to split databases, separating applications or actions into 'swim lanes', etc. There is enough here to satisfy someone who is just looking for technical design and architecture as well.

If you are involved in building or supporting a scalable technology business this is a MUST read. ... Read more

Product Description
An introduction to the nature of computer architecture and organization. Presents interesting problems with elegant solutions, with emphasis on the abstract elements of the problems common to all computer design. Addresses the several schools of thought on what constitutes a ``good'' computer architecture, focusing on the current RISC versus non-RISC approaches. Also discusses the downward drift of design sophistication to smaller machines, such as pipelines, caches, and overlapped I/O. Includes many examples of specific machines and the design philosophy behind them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Architecture of the computer kind
Reviews architectures and operation of conventional computers. The term 'architecture' can be used to refer to the view of a conventional computer as shown by its assembly language, as well as in other contexts. This reference considers the basic elements of a conventional computer architecture, compilation, data coding, registers, memory addressing, instruction sets, branching in programs, subroutines, interrupts, virtual memory, input/output, instruction execution, increasing performance, instruction lookahead, parallel and pipeline instruction execution. ... Read more

Product Description
Suitable for a one- or two-semester undergraduate or beginning graduate course in computer science and computer engineering, Computer Organization, Design, and Architecture, Fourth Edition presents the operating principles, capabilities, and limitations of digital computers to enable development of complex yet efficient systems. With 40% updated material and four new chapters, this edition takes students through a solid, up-to-date exploration of single- and multiple-processor systems, embedded architectures, and performance evaluation.

New to the Fourth Edition

Supplying appendices with relevant details of integrated circuits reprinted from vendors’ manuals, this book provides all of the necessary information to program and design a computer system. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Comprehensive and a lifesaver
I took a two-semester course on Assembly Language Programming, Digital Logic, and Computer Architecture and this book was amazing. We covered the basics of digital logic (binary, octal, and hexadecimal arithmetic, 1s and 2s complement, Boolean algebra, combinational logic, etc.) the first semester so by the time we got to this book in the second semester, we skipped the first two chapters and most of the third and went straight into adders and flip-flops.

The author discusses the organization of A Simple Computer (ASC), but given what little time we had, we were tasked with building a Very Simple Computer (VSC), a primitive 8-bit computer (5-bit memory, 3-bit opcode) capable of performing basic arithmetic. We read just the chapters on combinational circuits, synchronous sequential circuits, organization & programming, hardware design, and memory.

The point is that we only used about half the material in the book and we were able to build an 8-bit computer from TTL chips. If you read the thing cover to cover, you'd be able to build a 16- or 32-bit machine no problem. It was a ton of fun and this book was an absolute lifesaver. Together, the book and course fundamentally changed the way I look at computers and I have a much better understanding of how they operate and what's inside them. ... Read more

Product Description
B> This book provides up-to-date coverage of fundamental concepts for the design of computers and their subsystems. It presents material with a serious but easy-to-understand writing style that makes it accessible to readers without sacrificing important topics. The book emphasizes a finite state machine approach to CPU design, which provides a strong background for reader understanding. It forms a solid basis for readers to draw upon as they study this material and in later engineering and computer science practice. The book also examines the design of computer systems, including such topics as memory hierarchies, input/output processing, interrupts, and direct memory access, as well as advanced architectural aspects of parallel processing.To make the material accessible to beginners, the author has included two running examples of increasing complexity: the Very Simple CPU, which contains four instruction sets and shows very simple CPU design; and the Relatively Simple CPU which contains 16 instruction sets and adds enough complexity to illustrate more advanced concepts. Each chapter features a real-world machine on which the discussed organization and architecture concepts are implemented.This book is designed to teach computer organization/architecture to engineers and computer scientists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Horrible Book
This is a very, very bad book for someone who has not seen this material before. It may be fine for someone who needs a refresher, but someone who is learning needs to steer away from this one. We used this book for our Computer Organization and Architecture class.

The book is very hard to follow. It just reads and doesn't really give you any sense of problem solving along the way. Then you reach the problems, but nothing you learned will help you solve those problems. It's just a mess. This guy really shouldn't write another book.

Terrible
I recently had the misfortune of using this text for a Computer Architecture class.I read and re-read every chapter several times to always have to search out more material just to be able to answer the end of chapter questions.The book may be good as a second text, but should never be used as the main or only text for a class.There are supposedly no prerequisite readings for this, yet I highly disagree!

Consistently inconsistent
Most of the other 1-star reviews have covered the outstanding deficiencies of this text.I am 3/4 of the way through this book.It is the second course I have taken that used this text.It is thoroughly inconsistent.Concepts are not explained in a thorough and meaningful way, sometimes not at all.Logical progression (ability to connect concepts) is very poor.

It is at times impossible to solve the problems at the end of the chapter because they lack enough detail to understand what is actually required.

I am not a lazy student who is mad about my bad grade.I got an A in my previous course and am on track to get another; however, it has required A LOT more work than any other courses - mainly because of the terrible text.

Please avoid this text if you possibly can!!!

Weak learning tool, likely good reference book.
This is the least pdagogic technical text I have read to date. The material lacks coherence between points. It almost feels like a PowerPoint slide show that is missing the speaker to tie the points together.
That is compounded by poor illustrations that are also full of errata. The high purchase price is unjustified bt the poor production value.
(e.g. Karnaugh maps could have been much clearer if colors were used)
It may turn out to be a suitable reference work for some one who already knows the topic, but surely not to learn from.

Understandable but complex - for a complex subject
I used this book for an undergrad Architecture course.I had a great teacher, and we only looked at certain sections in the book.There is an awful lot to cover in a single semester.

The book is written for students with very little formal electronics knowledge, but you do need to know some basic logic and hardware concepts. It is based on the i86 architecture, making generalizations where possible. If you have a strong background, or want to learn very detailed concepts - then there are better choices. Sometimes this book over-simplifies concepts to reach its intended audience.

I later found the book useful as a reference tool in a graduate architecture class.Especially the sections on memory - cache, virutal, pagefiles, etc.. Even though my grad class was on the MiPS architecture, the concepts are the same.

Overall, this was a decent text for an undergraduate course.
As other reviewers, (good and bad) have noted - when you are learning, you should always use additional references. Don't depend on this book alone to teach you. ... Read more

Product Description
Valuable insights into a wide array of architectural practices, methods, and design solutions from the Muslim world.

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established in 1977 to enhance the understanding and appreciation of Islamic culture as expressed though architecture. Previous winners of this prestigious award, which is given every three years, include such architects as Geoffrey Bawa, Balkrishna Doshi, Ken Yeang, Jean Nouvel, Charles Correa, Frei Otto, and Hassan Fathy. For this current cycle, the Award has paid special attention to identifying examples of the new types of architecture that are emerging throughout the Muslim world. The documented projects represent efforts in the categories of infrastructure, landscaping, community development, public urban spaces, and responses to the growing housing crisis in many Muslim societies.

For the 2004 award, the steering committee included Billie Tsien, Jacques Herzog, Glenn Lowry, and Mohsen Mostafavi. Each of the winning projects is profiled and illustrated in depth, and critical essays consider the challenges and rewards confronting architects working in Muslim lands. 270 illustrations, 100 in color. ... Read more

Product Description
This third edition of the best selling text for Computer Organization courses takes a hardware oriented approach. Not presuming knowledge of microelectronics, the material is particularly suited to the undergraduate introductory course and for professional review. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Lucid and Timeless
A clearly written book, which employs a simple language. Another beauty of the book is that all loose ends are tied up. As sentences unfold one will realize why a particular phrase was used earlier and so on. That makes a big difference for an engineering text book.

It is the best book that I know for fundamentals. Hence, it will be useful for years to come.

Must have for all embedded systems people.

Has been there on many occasions
Helped me in my undergrad (older version). Helped me when I gave subject GRE recently. Covered Pipelining superscalar, out-of-order execution processors, caching and secondary storage, combinational and sequential ckt review etc real well. No computer architecture book covered them all so clearly, and in one book.

excellent, thorough, and clear
I had a chance to recommend this to a colleague just last week. It is easily twice the price of the "competing" books on the market, but you get what you pay for. With this book plus (perhaps) a hands-on course in the microprocessor laboratory--interfacing various logic families to output devices, e.g., or whipping up a robot of limited capabilities--the student gains the ultimate understanding of what makes computer systems "tick," from the loftiest levels of software, through the details of instruction set implementation (microprogrammed control, prefetching, cycle-stealing DMA transfers) and even the detailed digital logic circuits that underlie the CPU.

I dare say the student who aces this course is all but prepared to build a simplistic CPU on his own--"simplistic" because, though the concepts can be understood quite completely, it's an intricate challenge. Notably, the book has kept pace with the times: while the PDP-11 instruction set is didactically wonderful--clear and easy and even sporting reasonable opcode mnemonics--you don't see lots of PDP or LSI (or, for that matter, VAX) minis floating around nowadays. So, HV&Z moved on to the 68000, the Power PC, perhaps even the Pentium in the latest (of five or six) editions. (Good move, gentlemen: you've actually done your homework rather than just changing "happy" to "glad" and reprinting with a new version number!)

I used this book as a junior, but (a) I went to Cooper Union, which operates at an extremely high intellectual level [let's put it this way: I took a number of graduate-level computer science electives--compilers, OS, etc.--taught by Bell Labs MTSs as a junior and senior; and some "doctoral" courses that I took at Case were--honest Injun--watered-down versions of similar courses I had taken at Cooper], and (b) I graduated more than twenty years ago, and requirements always creep downward: a few credits fewer, a few tangential courses eliminated, perhaps one fewer humanities elective necessary to matriculate, etc. By 2006 standards, I would reluctantly have to reclassify HV&Z as a postgraduate text.

(A little puzzle for the reader: we had to build--from NAND gates--a microcomputer featuring two three-bit registers, and my squad was the only one that implemented an "exchange registers" function that required only one cycle and used no auxiliary storage registers. How did we do it? Tick ... tick ... tick ... time's up! The circuitry compared corresponding bits from both registers. If they matched, it did nothing; if they differed, it flipped both! So, there was no literal "exchange" operation: rather, each was simultaneously reset to the value of the other.)

Excellent undergraduate text
This was the assigned text for my junior year computer engineering course on computer organization.I loved it.The explanations areclear, progress logically, and are clearly presented.I find myself picking it up from time to time, both to read the more advanced chapters out of personal interest and to look up details needed in more advanced coursework.

Excellent Book
After reading this book do not believe you'll know everyting about computing , but you'll know more than others do. ... Read more

Product Description
A relatively new trend in architecture, folding is a playful method that opens up the design process to spontaneity and surprise. Folding Architecture presents the results of research into the technique, which was carried out in The Netherlands by the architectural faculty at the TU in Delft. It is an enlightening and inspiring survey that is vividly illustrated and presents all of the much-discussed concepts, projects and buildings in which this process has been applied. And as the book implies the possibilities are endless. Compulsory reference material for any architect or student of architecture who wishes to design outside of mainstream. Sophia Vyzoviti is an architect and teaches design method at the TU in Delft. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

let's be honest. It's a cute cook.
it's a nice little book to have around. Many people have asked to borrow it from me and were happy with what they gained out of it.

I haven't really used it but i found it nice to page through.


no one NEEDS to have this book, but it is nice to have handy for those moments in a pinch when you just need something to turn the crank in a design process for you.

are you kidding me?
perhaps i expected a little too much from this book. but personally i just don't think the content is clear at all. sure they provide you a template of how they cut and score the paper but the models don't look like they have carefully designed. even for this low price it still doesn't justify, since you can find most of the stuff from google anyway.

amazing book for paper models.
this book has helped me wit my architecture work in school. the images are amazing and detailed. ... Read more

Product Description
The 2001 Aga Kahn Award for Architecture. The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established in 1977 to encourage and bring to international attention the work of architects and designers building in Muslim nations. Previous winners of this prestigious award, which is given every three years, include such architects as Balkrishna Doshi, Ken Yeang, Jean Nouvel, Charles Correa, Frei Otto, and Hassan Fathy. Nominated and documented by their architects, planners, or development teams and clients, including commercial companies, communities, and private individuals, the projects encompass a broad range of building, from restoration and urban renewal to revisited vernacular and modern interpretations. For the 2001 award, the steering committee included Kenneth Frampton, Zaha Hadid, and Charles Correa. Each of the winning projects is profiled and illustrated in depth, and critical essays consider the challenges and rewards confronting architects working in Muslim countries. 270 illustrations and photographs, 100 in color. ... Read more

Product Description
An accessible introduction to computer systems and architecture

Anyone aspiring to more advanced studies in computer-related fields must gain an understanding of the two parallel aspects of the modern digital computer: programming methodology and the underlying machine architecture. The uniquely integrated approach of Computer Architecture and Organization connects the programmer's view of a computer system with the associated hardware and peripheral devices, providing a thorough, three-dimensional view of what goes on inside the machine.

Covering all the major topics normally found in a first course in computer architecture, the text focuses on the essentials including the instruction set architecture (ISA), network-related issues, and programming methodology. Using "real world" case studies to put the information into perspective, the chapters examine:
* Data representation
* Arithmetic
* The instruction set architecture
* Datapath and Control
* Languages and the machine
* Memory
* Buses and peripherals
* Networking and communication
* Advanced computer architecture

A valuable feature of this book is the use of ARC, a subset of the SPARC processor, for an instruction set architecture. A platform-independent ARCTools suite, containing an assembler and simulator for the ARC ISA, that supports the examples used in the book is available. Better yet, the content is supplemented by online problem sets available through WileyPlus.

Balanced and thoughtfully designed for use as either a classroom text or self-study guide, Computer Architecture and Organization: An Integrated Approach will put you solidly on track for advancing to higher levels in computer-related disciplines.

About the Author:

MILES MURDOCCAserves as the President and CEO of Internet Institute USA (IIUSA), a private postsecondary information technology (IT) school specializing in networking, operating systems, IP telephony, programming, and security. Previously, Dr. Murdocca has been a computer science faculty member at Rutgers University and a research scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories working in computer architecture, networking, and digital optical computing. He is the author of A Digital Design Methodology for Optical Computing and Principles of Computer Architecture and a contributing author to Computer Systems Design and Architecture, Second Edition as well as the author of dozens of professional papers and patents relating to information technology.

VINCE HEURING is an associate professor and acting chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has been at the university since 1984, and prior to that he spent three years at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Heuring's research encompasses computer architectures and programming language design implementation. He and his colleague, Harry Jordan, designed and built the world's first stored program optical computer, "SPOC." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Good
Haven't got too far into the book yet, I am taking a class on Comp. Arch and this is the book for the corse. It does a great job at explaining not just what is going on inside a comp. but also Why and the history behind it.

Computer Architecture and Organization: An Integrated Approach
Competent authors, updated. Perfect sense pedagogy and didactics. Results of these qualifications: book excellently structured. It presents historical events with absolute precision and well illustrated with detailed references and absolutely reliable when supported by capable and experienced organizations with a history and tradition in the development and application of information technology. Complete the table had enough indication to supplement the knowledge and understanding of IT motivating the reader to develop in bibliographic searches and experiments in laboratories.
Excellent book should be read and studied by all who want to know broadly Computer Science and / or deepen professionally and / or scientifically.
Read, study and include in your library.
President of a IT College.PhD in Computer Science

Nice book.
I am electrical engineer and found this book very easy to understand. The case study provided by the authors (ARC - a risc computer) is good in the way that it gives the reader the opportunity to map general concepts to a very simple machine architecture. The simulator, provided in the authors' website, is also very helpful. As negative points, I found the exercises, by end of the chapters, very easy and without any challenge for the students, moreover, there are many typos throughout thebook (including diagrams). I do recomend this book, specially for beginners in the field.

Run Away!!!
If there are any readers of this review who are considering using this for a course, don't.This is the worst computer science book I have ever tried to read.The authors use a lot of undefined acronyms, terms, etc... which makes it impossible to follow the explanations.Also, there are diagram that aren't really explained.I was forced to used this book in a university course, then went to the school library to find other books.I couldn't find a book that was worse than this one.I hate to be all negative, but I honestly can't think of anything good to say about it. ... Read more

Product Description
This textbook covers topics which cross the border between hardware and software and should be of value to both students of computer science and electronic engineering. It shows how one may proceed "top-down" through software engineering to arrive at the fundamental programming constructs that one wishes to run as process. Finally one arrives at the fundamental atoms of programming which must be available to make a universally programmable machine. Explanation is given of what the components of a computer are, how they are connected together and how they in turn are constructed. No particular technology is assumed. A full understanding of any machine architecture is not possible without programming it at the assembler level. It is shown with many examples, how instructions may be grouped to form process/constructs and how data objects may be defined. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first book in the two-volume set offering comprehensive coverage of the field of computer organization and architecture. This book provides complete coverage of the subjects pertaining to introductory courses in computer organization and architecture, including:
* Instruction set architecture and design
* Assembly language programming
* Computer arithmetic
* Processing unit design
* Memory system design
* Input-output design and organization
* Pipelining design techniques
* Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISCs)
The authors, who share over 15 years of undergraduate and graduate level instruction in computer architecture, provide real world applications, examples of machines, case studies and practical experiences in each chapter. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good book
I studied this book in my IT master program as a textbook for operating system course. It was easy to follow, clear, and simple. Some of other students who study some course but with another textbook they take it from me to its simply. Rich and small size easy to cary any where
i recommende it ..

After Just 4 Pages, I Already Don't Trust The Authors To Get Anything Right
First off, there is no such thing as "The interface between the application programs and a high level language...". They might as well have said "The interface between red construction bricks and red clay..." Those things are not distinct entities. One is made of the other. Bricks are made of clay which is shaped by a mold. Application programs are made of bits and pieces of a high level language (that is, the keywords, operators and other syntax elements that the high level language defines) which are "shaped" into the desired form by the source code that the programmer writes. They got the relationship between application programs and languages completely wrong.

At first I thought: OK, maybe these guys are just hardware types who are a little out of their element when it comes to software. That would be somewhat forgivable. Was that the case? Nope.

They proceeded to get wrong something so simple and obvious, that I wonder if any fact checking at all was done on this book. They cited the PowerPC chip as being a CISC processor, when it is actually a RISC processor. Also, they referred to it as "...the IBM and Macintosh PowerPC." The problem? Macintosh does not make the PowerPC chip, it uses it. Nevermind the fact that Macintosh is the name of a product, not of a company. It is IBM and Freescale Semiconductor (formerly known as Motorola's semiconductor division) that make the PowerPC processor chips. This is such basic stuff that even an intern fact checker/proofreader could spot it easily.

After such glaringly obvious errors -- less than 5 pages into the first chapter! -- I have no confidence at all in the ability of the authors to present the complex and sophisticated art of modern computer architecture in an accurate manner.

I am not going to waste any more of my time on this book.

Disappointing...
I was hoping to find an alternative to Patterson et al.'s "Computer Organization and Design" -- mainly to get away from their constant and not-very-subtle "MIPS is better than x86" diatribe.

This book loses one star for bad editing.

It loses another star for being (in places) just plain wrong about details. The authors seem to do fine with "big picture" generalizations, but when it comes to the particulars -- watch out! This problem seems most obvious when they try to talk about the features of real-world CPUs, such as the x86 family. For example, they made a couple statements about Pentium memory management that left me wondering if they had ever read the Intel documentation. In general, their real-world examples seemed to be something that they stuck into the book in order to make it "more relevant."

So, I guess it's back to Patterson, et al.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Old School Computing
While the book was writed in the 1960s, many of the facts remain true.Computer Organization deals primarily with the nuts and bolts of the hardware and how circuitry works.Difficulties arose when the author talks about long since past data storage punch cards and the old IBM machines.FORTRAN is used as the 'familiar' language for many examples, which becomes slightly confusing to new generation OOP programmers.There's more than likely a better book about Computer Organization utilizing newer concepts, terminology and programming, but this makes for a good read into the history of computers. ... Read more

Product Description
This book, intended for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in computer architecture, begins with a short history of digital computation. It is distinguished by its orientation towards RISC rather than CISC architecture, and is one of the few books on the market to fully address the topic of input/output and limits to speed. Bringing entire computing systems (both hardware and software) together, this text makes clear the consequences of hardware decisions on software vice versa. Also available is an instructor's manual (0-07-020454-3). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent introduction to RISC
The book is an exceptionally clearsighted introduction to the topic of RISC. With many lookbacks on existing processors the authors weighs the pros and cons on almost every aspect of the design. I especially enjoyed the lengthy discussions of what an operating system (unix in this case) expect from the hardware and how the two cooperate in the best possible way.

It's discussion on different file systems does not directly have a bearing on the RISC architecture but fits in very snugly in giving a most complete general overview of a computer system. There's more to it than a good processor.

Read it! You'll learn a lot - not only about RISCs - but also what has driven hardware designers in the microprocessor industry for decades.

Good introductory book
Good introduction of RISC CPU design. This book illustrates some of the architectural trade offs that real designers make when introducing a new CPU architecture. I especially like the fact that the authors went intogreat detail about the software and hardware aspects of the CPU design. ... Read more

Product Description
The third edition of Computer Architecture and Organization features a comprehensive updating of the material-especially case studies, worked examples, and problem sets-while retaining the book's time-proven emphasis on basic prinicples. Reflecting the dramatic changes in computer technology that have taken place over the last decade, the treatment of performance-related topics such as pipelines, caches, and RISC's has been expanded. Many examples and end-of-chapter problems have also been added. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

good book for beginners
its a good book to learn the basics for the computer architecture and some intermediate topics also

It's good
I have a BS in math and I found this book to be better than Hennessy/Patterson.I see that some of the reviewers don't have a very positive opinion of this book.I think they are wrong and their professors were right!Hayes book is subtle and will widen your perspective enormously.It's well written for someone who enjoys reading classics and doesn't like reading technical manuals that are here today, gone tomorrow.

A really good book for extensive knowledge
Though this book is indimidating on the first instance, It might be an ideal book if it is read more for knowledge than Grades.
It presents an extensive views on different architecture and even starts from explaining the TURING machine in the first chapter and ending with the Network architecture in the last chapter.
It has extensive views on how different digital circuits can be created using gates and most of the book covers this aspect of digital circuit design.
Such an extensive book should be considered for a 2 semester course rather than a one semester.

Poor Textbook Choice
I have worked in, on, and around computers for over 33 years. At the not-so-ripe-old age of 51, I have decided to return to college and complete my Comupter Science degree. This book is the text book for the Computer Architecture course.

This book is written like a thesis. There is very little explanation or education going on. It is as if the author is trying to convince the reader that he knows what he's talking about (which, no doubt, he does). The book is a poor choice for a college textbook. I know it's been a long time since I sat in an actual college class, but it seems to me that a textbook should make some attempt to enlighten instead of frighten.

Absolutely horrible!
Having taking a computer architecture course at both undergraduate and graduate levels, in my opinion, "Computer Architecture : A Quantitative Approach" by John Hennessy is a much better choice than this text by John Hayes. ... Read more