Product Description
The era of seemingly unlimited growth in processor performance is over: single chip architectures can no longer overcome the performance limitations imposed by the power they consume and the heat they generate. Today, Intel and other semiconductor firms are abandoning the single fast processor model in favor of multi-core microprocessors--chips that combine two or more processors in a single package. In the fourth edition of Computer Architecture, the authors focus on this historic shift, increasing their coverage of multiprocessors and exploring the most effective ways of achieving parallelism as the key to unlocking the power of multiple processor architectures. Additionally, the new edition has expanded and updated coverage of design topics beyond processor performance, including power, reliability, availability, and dependability.

CD System Requirements
PDF Viewer
The CD material includes PDF documents that you can read with a PDF viewer such as Adobe, Acrobat or Adobe Reader. Recent versions of Adobe Reader for some platforms are included on the CD.

HTML Browser
The navigation framework on this CD is delivered in HTML and JavaScript. It is recommended that you install the latest version of your favorite HTML browser to view this CD. The content has been verified under Windows XP with the following browsers: Internet Explorer 6.0, Firefox 1.5; under Mac OS X (Panther) with the following browsers: Internet Explorer 5.2, Firefox 1.0.6, Safari 1.3; and under Mandriva Linux 2006 with the following browsers: Firefox 1.0.6, Konqueror 3.4.2, Mozilla 1.7.11.
The content is designed to be viewed in a browser window that is at least 720 pixels wide. You may find the content does not display well if your display is not set to at least 1024x768 pixel resolution.

Operating System
This CD can be used under any operating system that includes an HTML browser and a PDF viewer. This includes Windows, Mac OS, and most Linux and Unix systems.

Increased coverage on achieving parallelism with multiprocessors.

Case studies of latest technology from industry including the Sun Niagara Multiprocessor, AMD Opteron, and Pentium 4.

Three review appendices, included in the printed volume, review the basic and intermediate principles the main text relies upon.

Eight reference appendices, collected on the CD, cover a range of topics including specific architectures, embedded systems, application specific processors--some guest authored by subject experts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

Terse
It's quite terse and needs many more diagrams for better visualization of difficult concepts. It's a book more for those who like reading theory and don't need a lot of examples.

Required
I needed this book for a class, and so far is has been pretty good.The topics are well explained, and the material is presented in a understandable fashion.

The bible... Nothing like others.
For those who have never read this book, I'd emphasize that this is not a computer architecture book that explains some basic stuffs. Instead, this book focuses more on the performance aspect of the computers and I'd say this is the ONLY worthwhile book that discusses from that viewpoint. So, if you are to study the computer performance, your choice is either reading this book or reading tons of papers published by researchers or both. It means you must have a good understanding on the computer architecture before reading this book.

My only complaint is that though the book is available only with paperback now, they didn't reduce the price. It's still worth the price, though.

Solutions to Case Study Exercises contain lots of errors
I'm very surprised, nobody is talking about the fact that the Solutions to Case Study exercises contain errors. The answers to chapter 4 exercices are a very disaster. Students just like to jump to the solutions (I do too). Please be aware

This book was good
I have been trying to return this book because a get confused and i didn't need this book. Can you tell me where i can send back the book please?

Though this book is really good.

Thank you. ... Read more

Product Description
The classic textbook for computer systems analysis and design, Computer Organization and Design, has been thoroughly updated to provide a new focus on the revolutionary change taking place in industry today: the switch from uniprocessor to multicore microprocessors. This new emphasis on parallelism is supported by updates reflecting the newest technologies with examples highlighting the latest processor designs, benchmarking standards, languages and tools. As with previous editions, a MIPS processor is the core used to present the fundamentals of hardware technologies, assembly language, computer arithmetic, pipelining, memory hierarchies and I/O. Along with its increased coverage of parallelism, this new edition offers new content on Flash memory and virtual machines as well as a new and important appendix written by industry experts covering the emergence and importance of the modern GPU (graphics processing unit), the highly parallel, highly multithreaded multiprocessor optimized for visual computing.

Instructors looking for 3rd edition teaching materials should e-mail textbook@elsevier.com.

A new exercise paradigm allows instructors to reconfigure the 600 exercises included in the book to easily generate new exercises and solutions of their own.

A CD provides a toolkit of simulators and compilers along with tutorials for using them as well as additional problems and solutions, and references.Amazon.com Review
This textbook provides a basic introduction to thefundamentals of current computer designs. As the title suggests, thetext skirts the border between hardware and software. After anoverview of the subject and a discussion of performance, the booklaunches into technical matter such as instruction sets, how they areconstrained by the underlying processor hardware, the constraints ontheir design, and more. An excellent critique of computer arithmeticmethods leads to a high-level discussion on processor design.Following is a great introduction to pipelining, nice coverage ofmemory issues, and solid attention to peripherals. The book concludeswith a brief discussion of the additional issues inherent inmultiprocessing machines. The extremely lucid description is groundedin real-world examples. Interesting exercises help reinforce thematerial, and each section contains a write-up of the historicalbackground of each idea. Computer Organization and Design isaccessible to the beginner, but also offers plenty of valuableknowledge for experienced engineers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (65)

Better than expected
I bought this book used and I was very surprised at how well kept it was. I saved about $40 by buying it here as apposed to the school Bookstore.

The best book I have used in computer engineering at UCLA
I'm a fourth year UCLA student studying computer engineering, and by far this has been my favorite text. It appeals both to the programmer and circuits guy in me, as well as the DIYer hardware enthusiast. It covers much of the essential computer architecture theory, but also is well supplemented with real world examples. It emphasizes design tradeoffs that real computer architects must solve. The only thing I don't like about it is the omission of some content from the hard text, but those items are provided via CD.

Could be better.
I've only made it through the first chapter, but there has already been answer-changing typos in the homework problems, and there have been several places where units in equations are either not defined or ambiguous and other similar problems.

Masterpiece
I did not buy this book from Amazon portal because of the fact that Elsevier sells low priced editions in my country.

This book is a masterpiece. Every budding CPU hobbyist or enthusiast must own this book. Everything that you needed to know to build a microcomputer on your known can be learnt from this book. By the way, I have the 4th edition of the book which focusses on another modern marvel - ARM. The pipelines, datapaths, control paths, hazards etc are explained with intuitive visuals. This book would have changed my life if I had it 14 years ago. But with teachers like Dave Patterson and John Hennessy, it can never be too late.

I highly recommend this book for undergraduate and advanced courses on the topic.

Awesomeness
The product came as described in the description. I also received it quick and had it for use in class within a few days. I would definitely make another purchase with this seller in the future. ... Read more

Product Description

Dealing with computer architecture as well as computer organization anddesign, this fully updated book provides the basic knowledge necessary tounderstand the hardware operation of digital computers. Written to aidelectrical engineers, computer engineers, and computer scientists, thevolume includes: KEY FEATURES: the computer architecture,organization, and design associated with computer hardware • thevarious digital components used in the organization and design of digitalcomputers • detailed steps that a designer must go through in order todesign an elementary basic computer • the organization and architectureof the central processing unit • the organization and architecture ofinput-output and memory • the concept of multiprocessing • two newchapters on pipeline and vector processing • two sections devotedcompletely to the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) • and sampleworked-out problems to clarify topics.

Customer Reviews (25)

Just what I needed
The book comes at a good deal, better than buying it at the school bookstore. It does the job that it is intended to, and gets you through the course you are taking.

content ok, binding horrible
I'm currently using this book in a class on computer organization that basically goes through the whole book. The first chapters introduce Boolean algebra, digital gates, and number systems. In the subsequent chapters, the author designs simple sample computers to teach bus design, register transfer language, assembly, and microprogrammed control. He later applies these concepts to more general designs.

Overall, I found most of the book to be understandable and fairly clear. The sample computer was a good way to learn about computer design. However, some sections of the book were ambiguously written and required re-reading to understand. It also wasn't very clear when the book would jump from one computer design to the next. I especially disliked this book's explanation of K-maps in the first chapter.

A big problem is the binding of the paperback version. I've owned my copy for two months, and the pages are falling out in batches faster than leaves in autumn.

Misleading description of the book status
The book was described as brand new. However, I received an email after the book was shipped apologizing for some highlights within the book pages. I found this deceiving in a sense.

Great Amazon Customer Service
This review concerns Amazon.com's customer service, not specifically this book.I rated it 3-stars only because that's the current average.I haven't actually started the course for which I need this book, so I can't comment on it's content.

I received this book in a slightly damaged condition, i.e., a small tear in the front cover.This would normally not be a big deal, but I expect a new book for which I paid $110 for to be in mint condition.Since I didn't have time to exchange it before my class started, I instead asked Amazon.com for a small credit, without specifying an amount.They replied to my email in just a few hours, offering a 20% refund to my credit card.I thought this was more than fair and a great example of taking care of a customer.

UPDATE 5/27/2010:I recently finished my college class with this book and I didn't like it.The text is very dated (just look at the copyright date).There were one or two parts I couldn't reconcile with other material provided by my college and my professor's answer to the problem was that Mano didn't even know about the issue when he wrote the book because it wasn't invented yet.Hmmmm, is it just me or should a computer text book be newer than 18 years old?

In all fairness, this text book was used for an introductory course, so many of the concepts it teaches are germane to a basic understanding of the topic.However, for the price, I expect updated material.If you need the book for college, then you don't have a choice, but if you want the book for your personal interest, I recommend finding a newer text.

Would give it 2 1/2 stars if I could
The book isn't really all that bad, the problem is that it can beconfusing to some readers. Instead of giving a list of problems, I am going to go into some detail about one specific thing wrong with the book, which could be a BIG problem for some readers. It is this:

It seems like once or twice every couple paragraphs, Mano will give a one-sentence explanation or description of something; and then a sentence or two later in the same paragraph, he will attempt to make the same point again but by rewording and rearranging the original sentence. I found this so incredibly distracting that I could not finish the book. I think Mano is doing this, i.e. repeating himself, to embed a concept into the student's mind. Not a bad idea, but it is poorly implemented by Mano...

what was so distracting about this, is that even if the reader feels he understands the concept the first time it is presented, when he then reads the reworded version, the tendency is to say "hey, wait a minute, is this the same thing he said before, or do the two statements conflict? or is it new information? Or did I not understand the first time??" So then I, at least, would go back and reread the first statement, then again compare it to the second, until I was able to answer these questions for myself. So it really slowed down my reading. I don't know, maybe it's just the way I read.

I should mention that I was mainly trying to learn from the book by self-study, i.e. no professor, although I did take a microprocessors course about 15 years ago.

Well, I guess I was verbose :-> but I wanted to inform so that anyone who thinks that they also will be distracted by this, buy a different book (like Rafiquzzaman) ... Read more

Product Description

• Reflects the latest technology in the field to provide readers with the most up-to-date resource
• Presents examples that cover a broad spectrum of hardware and software systems, from personal computers to mainframes
• Places more emphasis on networking to address increased importance of the communications area
• Consolidates the coverage of buses into one chapter.
• Integrates numerous review questions at the end of each chapter to enhance the reader's understanding of the material

Customer Reviews (4)

Waste of money.... many pages with bunch of examples
This is book is a waste of money. There are hundreds of examples and no important information. You gonna have to go through many pages, until you reach something that it's really worth it.
Anyway, it's matter of choice, but I don't wanna read the author opinions. I want to learn stuff I don't know. The serious material in that book is 100 pages or less out of 700!

Computer Hardware systems software & networking
My order arrived timely. Not enough information to maker buyer aware of having some highlights in the book which would just be a good information.

GREAT
The book is very helpful.
The only complaint is that they do not have a keyword dictionary at the end of each chapter.

Good purchase!
Book seems like new condition so i was satisfied. However, shipping took way to long. I can understand 7-10 business days but 16 days seemed a little ridiculous. ... Read more

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

• A problem/solution manual, integrating general principles and laboratory exercises, that provides students with the hands-on experience needed to master the basics of modern computer system design
• Features more than 200 detailed problems, with step-by-step solutions; many detailed graphics and charts; chapter summaries with additional "rapid-review" questions; and expert sidebar tips
• Describes analytical methods for quantifying real-world design choices regarding instruction sets, pipelining, cache, memory, I/O, and other critical hardware and software elements involved in building computers
• An ideal educational resource for the more than 70,000 undergraduate and graduate students who, each year, enroll in computer architecture and related courses

Customer Reviews (1)

Pretty good overview of computer architecture
Quite frankly, I was surprised at the usefulness of this Schaum's outline. I didn't think that the Schaum's outline format would work for a subject like computer architecture, but it does. All aspects of computer architecture are covered from computer arithmetic to processor design to memory systems to the advanced topic of multiprocessing. The format of the outline is a little different from the Schaum's usual formula. Each chapter consists of an "Objectives" section, followed by an introduction, followed by the various subsections of that chapter. There are examples and exercises on instruction set design, program design, block diagrams, and quite a few mathematical problems. This book is probably best suited to the advanced undergraduate or for self-study of the subject. If you are a graduate student that is using Hennessy's "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" the level of difficulty of the mathematical problems in that book is not matched by this one, and you should look for another source. Otherwise I recommend this guide for most students of computer architecture. ... Read more

Product Description

This best-selling title, considered for over a decade to be essential reading for every serious student and practitioner of computer design, has been updated throughout to address the most important trends facing computer designers today.In this edition, the authors bring their trademark method of quantitative analysis not only to high performance desktop machine design, but also to the design of embedded and server systems.They have illustrated their principles with designs from all three of these domains, including examples from consumer electronics, multimedia and web technologies, and high performance computing.

The book retains its highly rated features: Fallacies and Pitfalls, which share the hard-won lessons of real designers; Historical Perspectives, which provide a deeper look at computer design history; Putting it all Together, which present a design example that illustrates the principles of the chapter; Worked Examples, which challenge the reader to apply the concepts, theories and methods in smaller scale problems; and Cross-Cutting Issues, which show how the ideas covered in one chapter interact with those presented in others.In addition, a new feature, Another View, presents brief design examples in one of the three domains other than the one chosen for Putting It All Together.

The authors present a new organization of the material as well, reducing the overlap with their other text, Computer Organization and Design: A Hardware/Software Approach 2/e, and offering more in-depth treatment of advanced topics in multithreading, instruction level parallelism, VLIW architectures, memory hierarchies, storage devices and network technologies.

Also new to this edition, is the adoption of the MIPS 64 as the instruction set architecture. In addition to several online appendixes, two new appendixes will be printed in the book:one contains a complete review of the basic concepts of pipelining,the other provides solutions a selection of the exercises.Both will be invaluable to the student or professional learning on her own or in the classroom.

Hennessy and Patterson continue to focus on fundamental techniquesfor designing real machines and for maximizing their cost/performance.

* Presents state-of-the-art design examples including:
* IA-64 architecture and its first implementation, the Itanium
* Pipeline designs for Pentium III and Pentium IV
* The cluster that runs the Google search engine
* EMC storage systems and their performance
* Sony Playstation 2
* Infiniband, a new storage area and system area network
* SunFire 6800multiprocessor server and its processor the UltraSPARC III
* Trimedia TM32 media processor and the Transmeta Crusoe processor

* Examines quantitative performance analysis in the commercial server market and the embedded market, as well as the traditional desktop market.
Updates all the examples and figures with the most recent benchmarks, such as SPEC 2000.
* Expands coverage ofinstruction sets to include descriptions of digital signal processors, media processors, and multimedia extensions to desktop processors.
* Analyzes capacity, cost,and performance of disks over two decades.
Surveys the role of clusters in scientific computing and commercial computing.
* Presents a survey, taxonomy, and the benchmarks of errors and failures in computer systems.
* Presents detailed descriptions of the design of storage systems and of clusters.
* Surveys memory hierarchies in modern microprocessors and the key parameters of modern disks.
* Presents aglossary of networking terms. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

excellent reference guide
This isn't exactly beach reading, but it's not supposed to be. I originally bought this book for a graduate level college course, and found the book to be almost exhaustive in it's coverage. I can't recommend it for the casual reader, but as a reference guide, this is practically the gold standard for computer architecture.

The best Computer Architecture text?
A Quantitative Approach is probably the dominant computer architecture available today.

A Quantitative Approach covers all the main topics in computer architecture. But the book seems to have been updated in a somewhat disjointed manner, or maybe this is how the authors write. The problem is most acute with the exercises and problems which are often unclear, and occassionaly nonsensical or wrong. Even worse the issues with the exercises are not covered in the errata.

Most topic explanations are understandable, up to date and relevant. But some of the more advanced topics can be lacking in details.

This is also one of the most boring books written.

Dont go for 3rd edition even though it is a great text book!!!!!!!
The Fourth edition is being scheduled to be released in next month(sep 2006/oct 2006). So my advice is to wait for that textbook of new edition which costs $79.95 in the amazon itself

Perfectly confusing!
Too much information presented in a complicated format. It has it all but not a book to learn from. I don't recomend this to those who really want to understand the computer architecture and be able to design and calculate. Very difficult to understand and make sense of problems.

Thorough book, tough questions
This book is excellent - I've never seen another computer science book of its type or quality.It is essentially a hardware book for non-EE types; however, the authors literally leave no stone unturned (in chapter 5, for example, they state, "we have only included examples of memory designs that have found their way into commercial implementations").If a computer has ever, in the history of computing, used a particular design approach, that approach is detailed and compared carefully against all other existing approaches.When I first saw the size of the book, I was amazed that anybody could fill so much text with any information (useful or not) - after reading the first few chapters, I was amazed that they could fit so much information into such a relatively small space!

I have to agree with the other reviewers about the exercises - perhaps 5-10 "warm up" exercises (with answers) before the hardcore exercises presented by the authors might have helped solidify some of the concepts before being hit with the post-PHD level exercises they throw at you.

Also, they drive me crazy by insisting that the word data is plural (e.g. "the data are ready").It probably technically is, but none of the rest of us talk like that.You should stop, too. ... Read more

Product Description
Fundamental principles that will keep you on the cutting edge!

Most computer  architecture books are just too technical and complex. Focusing on specific technology, they often bypass the basics and are outdated as quickly as technology advances. Now, Irv Englander's gentle-but-thorough introduction to computer architecture and systems software provides just the right amount of technical detail you'll need to make successful decisions in your future career.

The text covers all the basics in an accessible, easy-to-understand way. Organized in a form that parallels an actual computer system, entire sections are devoted to principles of data, hardware, and software, with computer interconnection, clustering, and networking integrated into the material to emphasize the importance of computer and system structure. Assuming only basic knowledge, these sections build up to an in-depth understanding of each topic and how they interrelate to make up a computer system.

With this Third Edition's outstanding features, you'll be able to build a solid foundation for success on the job.

• All chapters have been thoroughly updated to reflect current technology.
• Revised with even clearer discussions of virtual storage, the operation of memory, and modern CPU architectures.
• Programming examples are written in a C++/Java-like pseudocode.
• Emphasizes the computer aspects of clustering and networking, rather than the data communication aspects.
• Provide an understanding of underlying, non-changing basics of computers, so that you can make knowledgeable decisions about systems.
• Introduce new technological concepts without overwhelming you with too much detail.
• Examples cover a broad spectrum of hardware and software systems, from personal computers to mainframes.
• Integrates discussions of hardware and software throughout, and explores the symbiosis between them.

Customer Reviews (13)

exactly what I needed
Exactly what I needed. They gave what they said I would get. Very satisified with my purchase and the service.

Fairly helpful, but who is it aimed at?
Okay, first the good news. This is a weighty book with a lot of well presented information. As one of the previous reviewers noted, you can only simplify this kind of technical information so much. I agree with that reviewer that Englander has done a good job in covering such topics as data and computer mathematics, hardware architecture and operation, and software components. The diagrams are generally helpful and well done, and though there is a large volume of text here, the author keeps the pros flowing pretty well.

The bad news is that this is not particularly helpful for those approaching this subject for the first time. On many occasions Englander refers to "your previous programing experience" and similar presumptions about the readers technical background and knowledge level. Yes, I agree not all books are aimed beginners, but I read this text for a third year undergraduate course in IT and was often a bit baffled by the author's assumption that I was a computer programmer. Perhaps this fact says more about the lack of introductory texts available on the subject of hardware and software architecture than about this particular text, but I only found this book "fairly" helpful.

The strange thing is that I can't imagine intermediate or advanced IT student or professionals not knowing the subjects covered in this book already, and so I am left with the question "who is this text actually aimed at"?

Overall, I would rate this book as fairly helpful, but not really aimed at the readership well.

Not good for learning
This was required reading for an online IT college course.I'm an experienced IT professional and I had a very hard time with this book.the language is very difficult to follow and the examples/illustrations only made sense after I learned the concept from other texts/websites.This isn't a book from which to learn, if you do not already understand these concepts.I did not complete the book, as it only caused frustration.

Seriously Lacking - Buy a different book if you can
This was a required text for a computer science course I am taking. I've gone through half the book already and I get more and more confused as I go.

There are a lot of nice pictures that I assume are meant to be funny, but other than that, you're not getting much.

This book lacks clear explanations for each topic. While there is a lot of text, you'll be hard pressed to find anything you can make sense out of.

This book lacks quality examples. Though the examples it does have are helpful, there are not enough. When you get to the exercises at the end of each chapter you find that the questions seek answers to ideas that often were not covered or not covered well enough or lacked examples.

This book is so bad, there have been emails going around among almost all of my classmates, and even the professor had his 2 cents, and hopefully the course will use a different textbook for the next semester.

Don't waste your money on it!

Confusing and hard to understand
As others have pointed out, this is definitely not a book for beginners. But what's worse is that its not very well written. The phrases and sentences are sometimes confusing. While some appear to be good examples, usually they are not well explained. I hate to be this harsh, but the book often has sentences for the sake of having sentences! I would not recommend this book to anyone other than someone who wants a quick reference of IS architecture. There are other books that do a better job of explaining this subject. ... 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
Digital Design and Computer Architecture is designed for courses that combine digital logic design with computer organization/architecture or that teach these subjects as a two-course sequence. Digital Design and Computer Architecture begins with a modern approach by rigorously covering the fundamentals of digital logic design and then introducing Hardware Description Languages (HDLs). Featuring examples of the two most widely-used HDLs, VHDL and Verilog, the first half of the text prepares the reader for what follows in the second: the design of a MIPS Processor. By the end of Digital Design and Computer Architecture, readers will be able to build their own microprocessor and will have a top-to-bottom understanding of how it works--even if they have no formal background in design or architecture beyond an introductory class. David Harris and Sarah Harris combine an engaging and humorous writing style with an updated and hands-on approach to digital design.

· Unique presentation of digital logic design from the perspective of computer architecture using a real instruction set, MIPS.
· Side-by-side examples of the two most prominent Hardware Design Languages--VHDL and Verilog--illustrate and compare the ways the each can be used in the design of digital systems.
· Worked examples conclude each section to enhance the reader's understanding and retention of the material.
· Companion Web site includes links to CAD tools for FPGA design from Synplicity and Xilinx,
lecture slides, laboratory projects, and solutions to exercises. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Fast shipping, perfect quality
I am very happy with this order.Delivered to me before the estimated time shown in checkout!
Thank you.

Very good introductory text for circuits and computer design
Very good introductory book. The organization and flow could be improved but very helpful descriptions and diagrams of circuitry. Also, one of my lightest textbooks as it is a paperback edition and very compact.

Good at teaching computer architecture from the ground up...
... and from the ground up I mean from binary numbers to the design of the components of a modern computer. You learn logic design, how to build components such as counters from the basic logical elements, VHDL and Verilog, and then you learn to put all of these components together into the larger components of a working MIPS microcomputer.

HDLs are introduced in chapter 4 after logic design has been covered. HDLs are then used in chapters five through seven to design first logical building blocks and then entire processors. Chapters six and seven focus on the MIPS architecture adapted from Patterson and Hennessy. Chapters six through eight deal specifically with the architecture of the IA-32 processors. More modern subjects included in chapter seven include an overview of branch prediction, superscalar processors, out-of-order operaton, multithreading, and multicore processors. The chapters stay hands-on by having each one end with practice exercises and interview questions such as those a job applicant might encounter.

This book makes a good prerequisite or companion to studying that traditional text of computer architecture classes everywhere, Computer Architecture, Fourth Edition: A Quantitative Approach (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design). The statistics and mathematics presented in that text make more sense once you see how a real computer is designed from the ground up and you see some of the questions of throughput emerge, but don't quite see how to get to the answers. The tools to quantify and solve the problems of throughput and scale in computer architecture are in Patterson and Hennessy's more mathematical text.

All in all I highly recommend this text to students of computer architecture and design who are at least at a college sophomore level and are no stranger to programming in either the C, C++, or Java languages.

What a Gem!
I will restate the title of this review, "What a Gem!" This book has to be one the best introductory books on this topic that I have read.

From the first page, all the way to the appendices, this book offers an easy to read flow of explanations, examples and visual illustrations. The tone of the book makes it very reader friendly, in contrast to other books that I have in my shelf where the authors, although very knowledgable in the field, lack the important writting skills and style that is important when introducing a new subject to readers who are mostly college students.

I particularly like the introduction to state machines, as well the coverage on sequential timing analysis. As another reviewer pointed out, it was nice to have a side by side comparison of both Verilog and VHDL languages throughout the text. As someone who regularly uses VHDL, I learned quite a bit about Verilog through these side by sides. The companion website provides a ton of useful material to use along with this text. The labs are very easy to follow, and the code for the MIPS processor is also provided, although not the complete MIPS processor, I feel that the coverage was enough such that the reader/student has a very good understading where he/she can modify it to include more capability for more MIPS instructions.

This book is a must have for those who are currently studying electrical/electronics/computer engineering. Can be used in conjunction with a class as well as for self study.

I highly recommend it.

Easy to learn from and a great reference
I used this book in my introductory computer engineering class.Whenever I was confused after lecture, reading the book cleared up a lot of my questions.In fact, it is written so clearly that I think anyone could teach themselves the subject by reading the book.Even in my more advanced classes, I find myself coming back to this book to brush up on Verilog, timing constraints, and other fundamental topics.Also, I have used this book to prepare for many (successful) interviews since it highlights material that interviewers like to ask.Because it is such a great book to learn from and a good reference for many topics, I recommend this book for electrical engineering or computer science students and anyone else who wants to learn about the subject. ... Read more

Product Description

"Once in a great while, a landmark computer-science book is published. Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Second Edition, is such a book. In an era of fluff computer books that are, quite properly, remaindered within weeks of publication, this book will stand the test of time, becoming lovingly dog-eared in the hands of anyone who designs computers or has concerns about the performance of computer programs." - Robert Bernecky, Dr. Dobb's Journal, April 1998

Customer Reviews (19)

Very comprehensive textbook - but not as readable as the other book by the same authors

This book assumes a solid understanding of computer architecture, and basic techniques for optimising cycle throughput. Therefore, it is not really practical to attempt to read this book without such knowledge. A very good introduction could be gained from another book by the same authors - "Computer Architecture - The Hardware/Software Interface".

I read this book as part of the curriculum of a course called "Advanced Computer Architectures" at the University of Copenhagen. It is a very informative book when it comes to discussing various dynamic (hardware) and static (compiler-based) techniques for improved pipelined behaviour of a CPU.

20
my name is abduallah alhammadi from yemen Iam student at computer engineering in yemen

A little outdated...but still a great book
Anyone who is interested in computer architecture or computer performance benchmarking should have a copy of this book. It is well organized, packed full of information, and has many challenging exercises at the end of each chapter that reinforce and extend the concepts outlined. Also, the inside jacket gives a list of useful formula for quick reference. For those interested in vector processors, the authors have included an overview of these in the appendix. Do to new hardware and updated versions of operating systems, the book is of course somewhat out-of-date since it first appeared. It takes a long time to get through the book, but the time spent is well worth it. My interest in the book was mostly in performance aspects of computer architecture, and how to relate the material in the book to the SPEC benchmarking studies. For this reason, and for lack of space, my comments will briefly summarize the parts of the book that I found exceptionally well-written in this area.

The discussion on the measuring and reporting of computer performance begins early in the book, wherein the authors attempt to quantify what it means for one computer to be faster than then another. They take the position that the best measure of performance is the execution time of real programs. They of course mention benchmarks as a way of doing this, and discuss briefly the SPEC92 benchmark suites. The SPEC standards have changed considerably since this book was written however. After a discussion of the methods to calculate performance, and their drawbacks, the authors discuss Amdahl's Law and how to use it correctly. This is followed by a discussion of the CPU performance equation with several interesting examples given. There is a "fallacies and pitfalls" section at the end of chapter one, as there is at the end of every chapter, that discusses the problems with approaches taken in benchmarking performance. These arguments are considerably important if one is to step away from marketing claims when developing commercial software packages, especially for scientific applications. Customer satisfaction in using these packages is dictated by the actual performance, not what might be accomplished in an isolated test environment. The author's honest approach to these issues is extremely helpful to those involved in developing these kinds of programs and applications.

One of the more common fallacies that they discuss in this regard are: The MIPS value as being indicative of performance among computers. They argue that this is not the case since MIPS is dependent on the instruction set, the program being run, and it can vary inversely to performance. For the later, they give the well-known example of machines with optional floating-point hardware. The MIPS rating can be misleading since floating-point programs using the hardware take less time but have a lower MIPS rating. If software floating point routines are used, they result in a higher MIPS rating but the execution time is longer. The issues with instruction sets are given a very detailed treatment by the authors, along with the role of compilers in designing an efficient instruction set. They discuss how variables are allocated and addressed and how many registers are needed to allocate the variables appropriately. They use a hypothetical load-store architecture, which they call DLX to illustrate the points they are attempting to make. The DLX is generic enough so as to be convincing in its didactic quality, based as it is on the computer hardware that was available at the time of writing.

The authors give a thorough discussion of pipelining, including performance issues and potential pitfalls in using it. They also describe the use of dynamic scheduling to avoid stalling when data dependencies are present. The scoreboard and Tomasulo approaches to dynamic scheduling are discussed. In addition, the authors spend a lot of time discussing cache memory design and cache optimization, and virtual memory. The chapter on storage media is excellent and the authors employ some queuing theory to estimate the reponse time and throughput of an I/O system, assuming that the system is in equilibrium. The authors then discuss in detail different ways to benchmark I/O performance. This discussion is extremely important for those involved in Web server performance modeling and benchmarking. An excellent example is given dealing with the performance of a UNIX file system.

Chapter 7 is very important for those who need to study the performance of networked computers. The authors begin by considering a simple network consisting of two machines containing FIFO queues. They then design a simple protocol, similar to UDP for transferring data between these machines, and calculate the total latency of this network. Interconnection media are considered, although the presentation is somewhat out-of-date due to improvements and costs since the book was written. Performance issues with switched (ATM) versus shared medium (Ethernet) are discussed. The authors also treat connectionless networks with a brief overview of the TCP/IP protocol, and mention the role of the Internet, but do not discuss, disappointingly, performance issues with TCP/IP over the Internet, which is a formidable mathematical problem.

The treatment of multiprocessor architectures is excellent and the authors discuss two application kernels that are frequently used in scientific applications: the Fast Fourier Transform and the LU factorization from linear algebra. The parallel implementation of these algorithms is extremely important in scientific programming. They consider the Barnes-Hut n-body algorithm and the Ocean application to study scaling and performance issues in parallel programs.

Some excellent appendices appear in the book, particularly the ones on vector architectures. For those interested in scientific applications, vector processing is a popular methodology for performance enhancement. But the authors point out that the popularity of vector processing seems to becoming to an end, due to advances in microprocessor technology. Scientific progammers have realized this, and have devoted much of their time in writing code that will run on these processors, which is frequently a challenging proposition.

wordy and rambling
It is true that this is _the_ reference book for computer architecture.However, that has nothing to do with it being a well-written book.Its popularity may be attributed
to the lack of books on the same topic which allowed it to become
the standard textbook in many universities.This is how I came to have to suffer through it in a college graduate course.

Contrary to what some of the previous reviews described, this book is not conceptual at all.One of Patterson's main points is, to put it bluntly, why bother theorizing when you can benchmark with a set of most heavily used real programs for the intended application?The computations involved don't go beyond what one needs to balance a checkbook.And the few "laws" such as Amdahl's Law, is so common sense that it's sad that a name is attached to it.All of these are minor complaints, however, compared to the terrible writing style.I don't expect a technical writer to be polished or even engaging.But at the very least s/he must be coherent and to-the-point.In several chapters especially in the second half of the book, the authors would ramble on for pages without getting anywhere.Phrases or even paragraphs could have been taken out to clarify the content.It almost seemed that the authors were trying to fill enough pages just to get paid.

In short, this book does not live up to its reputation but anyone interested in computer architecture will probably have to endure it until a better book comes out.

Must have for college students, not for professionals
Hennessy and Patterson put heavy emphasis on conceptual understanding of how modern computer work and how the performance is measured by benchmarking technique. I think this book should be a good wrap for college student.

The thing that is pitiful is the exercises behind each chapter which is astronomically much more difficult to grasp and to comprehend. They might be too wordy and not suitable for someone who just learn computer architecture.

The 'virtual' DLX ISA, although functions as a simple architecture, should be carefully revised to support or channel various issues in modern processor (like superscalar or VLIW). Students are stuck with DLX for the whole semester without the opportunity to explore other ISA like MIPS, VAX, or Intel x86. ... Read more

Product Description
Designing a mission for a flight to the Moon requires balancing the demands of a wide array of spacecraft systems, with the details of tending each component generating complex and often contradictory requirements. More than any other system in the Apollo spacecraft, the Apollo Guidance Computer drove the capabilities of the lunar missions. In the 1960's, most computers filled an entire room yet the spacecraft's computer was required to be compact and require little power.  When compared to modern systems, the AGC's design limitations and lack of speed presented formidable challenges. Yet, hardware and software engineers overcame these difficulties, and their creation was able to guide a new and complex spacecraft and its precious human cargo away from the safety of Earth and towards a new world. Although people today find it difficult to accept that it was possible to control a spacecraft using such a 'primitive' computer, it nevertheless had capabilities that are advanced even by today's standards.

The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation is the first comprehensive description of the Apollo computer, beginning with its internal organization to its user interface and flight software. Particular emphasis is placed on the instruction set, Executive capabilities, the Interpreter and the detailed procedures for mission application software. Launch, landing on the Moon and entry back on Earth are explained in rich detail and show how the computer was an integral part of the spacecraft operation. As a comprehensive account, it spans the disciplines of computer science, aerospace engineering and spacecraft operations. The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation is an essential reference for space historians and engineers, and serves well as a complementary text for computer science courses. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Vital Historical Computer Architecture Study--"Wow"
The embedded computer that traveled with the Apollo astronauts was not only an important component of the navigation and control system for the historic lunar landings; it was an infinitely important landmark in the development of the microcomputer and embedded real-time systems which today inhabit our cars, homes and entertainment equipment.It was also the first important step in developing inexpensive real-time systems for control and ubiquitous computing.While other works such as Mindel's "Digital Apollo" and Eldon C. Hall's "Journey To The Moon" have described this system as a component of the overall Apollo system and in a first-person account of the development process, only this important textbook gives the modern student of computer architecture and embedded real-time systems the technical detail to understand how this first microcomputer system worked in practice.Exquisite detail and explanation is given of the Hardware and Logical Design Architecture of this systems, as well as the principles and practice of the historic Forth-like language interpreter and Real-Time Executive Software.

This exceedingly valuable work will give present day Computer Science students the background to understand how the dramatic breakthroughs in Logical Design, Computer Architecture, Computer Language Interpreters and Real-Time Executive Software was invented, and how it worked in practice. Detailed Scenarios are also given of how this software and hardware architecture functioned in the astronauts computation of Navigation and Guidance.Enough detail and careful instruction is given in the functioning of this computer for classroom instruction in computer science or for the advanced hobbyist to use the software simulators of the Apollo Guidance Computer in duplicating the steps the Lunar Astronauts performed in guiding the Command Module and Lunar Lander.This excellent reference will form a model for teaching and learning historical Computer Architectures and Software so that future Computer Scientists can understand and learn the original ideas that today guide their field.


--Ira Laefsky
MSE/MBA Computer Human Interaction Researcher and Consultant formerly Senior Consultant on the Staff of Arthur D. Little, Inc. and Digital Equipment Corporation ... Read more

Product Description
The authors take a “No Mysteries” approach to computer systems. They interrelate three different viewpoints to provide a unique understanding of the subject: the perspective of the logic designer, the assembly language programmer, and the computer architect. The book has up-to-the-minute coverage of the latest developments in microprocessors, including ALU, pipelining, memory hierarchy, networks and the Internet. And, rather than focusing on a single type of architecture, Heuring and Jordan examine both CISC and RISC models at the ISA level using the unambiguous language of RTN (Register Transfer Notation), allowing for a more in-depth appreciation of different machine structures and functions.The authors examine general purpose machine, machine languages, and digital logic, some real machines, processor design, processor design—advanced topics, computer arithmetic and the arithmetic unit, memory system design, input and output, peripheral devices, communications, networking and the Internet.For computer science and engineering professionals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Computer system arch
The delivery was prompt and it's condition is the same as described by seller. Would do business with this seller again.

Not Enough Examples, Different Versions of Books...WTF?! Pick Another Book!!!
This book covers the material but examples are few and far between, making the exercises much harder than they should be. The text is definitely not a light read, either. As a previous reviewer pointed out, there is more than one version of the second edition. The two versions are indistinguishable at cursory glance: you must compare the text and problems in depth to distinguish between the two editions. We encountered this problem in my class while doing homework from the Chapter 4 exercise bank: some problems were different in the two books, an issue that was discovered only when folks turned in their assignments. Pick another computer architecture book if possible.

Wide breadth, yet sparse description
I had this book as an undergraduate.While it covers a wide range of topics, it does so only by giving many topics a shallow treatment.The material in the book is insufficient for many of the exercises, and the book's examples routinely contain errors.Additionally, at least two versions of the "second edition" exist, and while they are not differently marked, the examples and problems are different.
If you need a book that will describe the aspects of design WITHOUT providing accurate details, this is probably a good book for you.But if you need precise details, or if you plan on teaching undergraduate students, I strongly suggest looking elsewhere.

Good book for introductory level
This book builds knowledge from ground up so it is a very good book for people who have no background in computer science or computer engineering.Appendices are very neccessary materials if a reader has no background in this area at all so I would recommend to read the appendices first if you have no background.

It's too bad...
I've had Vincent Heuring as a professor.All I can say about the book is that it's a good reference for a professor doesn't cover his own material well.He attempted to explain things in class, but could never quite come through.The books helped greatly in clarifying his lectures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A+ book on really advanced but yet to be implemented designs
This book discusses some CPU/computer architecture designs and design principles which should be considered advanced not only for the year of publishing (1982) but for today and for the future also. The book startswith discussion of semantic gap between mechanisms presented by realprogramming languages and real computers. The book also introducesdifferent measures which can be applied to binary programs e.g. programsize, number of bytes transferred etc.It's easily seen that semantic gapimpacts software reliability but what's more interesting advanced designsnot only minimize this gap improving software reliability and reducingdevelopment effort but also improve all the measures of binaryapplications. The book proves this comparing real IBM System 360 Model 158with imaginary PL/1 machine implementing subset of PL/1 language andmoregeneral SWARD machine. The numbers characterizing advances of the later twoare very impressive. It seems that the book can be easily overwritten todaywith references to C or Java and Pentium or UltraSPARC without changing theconclusion. Some real designs are pictured: forgotten todayiAPX432 (whichseems had given i286 its memory management), research database machinesetc. Author (mostly taken from RadiSys web site) - Glen Myers - Presidentand CEO of RadiSys which he founded in 1987. Prior to that, he heldmanagement positions at Intel in the microprocessor components area. Amongother things, he was responsible for the definition of the i386 and i960processors, and he holds three patents on the chip design of the i960.Prior to joining Intel, Myers was with IBM for 13 years, at the IBMPoughkeepsie laboratory and the IBM Systems Research Institute. He is theauthor of eight books on computer architecture and software engineering(including often mentioned "The Art of Software Testing (1979)".The book is good written and easily read (at least in its Russiantranslation which is the only one I could read about ten years ago). SinceI missed somewhere the first part of it (it was in two volumes in Russian)and don't have the second at hand probably I missed somethingand I'm notsure for correct spellingSWARD / SWORD for which I couldn't find anyreference on the web. I guess the book is worth reading for students in CSand CPU/system designers and all those strange people dealing with computersystems design preferring to think of the things happening not taking adsas definitive source of information. Also it's a good piece of informationfor those interested in technology/computer history, analyzis andforecasting. ... Read more

Product Description
With the new developments in computer architecture, fairly recent publications can quickly become outdated. Computer Architecture: Software Aspects, Coding, and Hardware takes a modern approach. This comprehensive, practical text provides that critical understanding of a central processor by clearly detailing fundamentals, and cutting edge design features. With its balanced software/hardware perspective and its description of Pentium processors, the book allows readers to acquire practical PC software experience. The text presents a foundation-level set of ideas, design concepts, and applications that fully meet the requirements of computer organization and architecture courses.The book features a "bottom up" computer design approach, based upon the author's thirty years experience in both academe and industry. By combining computer engineering with electrical engineering, the author describes how logic circuits are designed in a CPU. The extensive coverage of a micprogrammed CPU and new processor design features gives the insight of current computer development. Computer Architecture: Software Aspects, Coding, and Hardware presents a comprehensive review of the subject, from beginner to advanced levels. Topics include:o Two's complement numbers o Integer overflow o Exponent overflow and underflow o Looping o Addressing modes o Indexing o Subroutine linking o I/O structures o Memory mapped I/O o Cycle stealing o Interrupts o Multitasking o Microprogrammed CPU o Multiplication tree o Instruction queue o Multimedia instructions o Instruction cache o Virtual memory o Data cache o Alpha chip o Interprocessor communications o Branch prediction o Speculative loading o Register stack o JAVA virtual machine o Stack machine principles ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disappointing:A good book done badly.
If this were the only book in the world on the subject, I would probably recommend it.As it happens, there are lots of other books out there, almost all of which are better.I picked up this book because I always enjoy reading how computer architecture is covered and it seemed to contain some subjects of particular interest.I promptly discovered that while it contains a lot of good material, it is incredibly poorly organized, badly edited and actually contains factual errors.

Parts of it remind me of a professor I had in college that covered material he had read about but have never actually worked with.I am kind of surprised to see material presented this way in such a nice looking textbook from a respectable publisher.

What is particularly frustrating is that there is a lot of good material here.If it were massively edited with some major rewriting (with fact checking), it could be turned into quite a good book.Until that happens, I would suggest avoiding this particular volume. ... Read more

Product Description
Inside the Machine explains how microprocessors operate -- what they do, and how they do it. Written by the co-founder of the highly respected Ars Technica site, the book begins with the fundamentals of computing, defining what a computer is and using analogies, numerous 4-color diagrams, and clear explanations to communicate the concepts that form the basis of modern computing. After discussing computers in the abstract, the book goes on to cover specific microprocessors, discussing in detail how they work and how they differ. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

A nice illustration to how computers works
Inside the machine by Jon Stokes is a wonderful introductory treatment of computer and microprocessor architecture. Author started off with microprocessor concept as simple computing and calculating machine.Next he gradually moved into advanced topic such as pipelining and superscalar execution. Then he discusses Intel Pentium and Pentium architecture and PowerPC processor followed by comparison between Intel Pentium 4 and Motorola G4E. Different caching scheme are discussed towards the end of the book. The book closes with discussion of Intel latest line of processor such as Pentium M, Core Duo and Core 2 Duo.

Chapter 1: Basic Computing Concept

In this chapter, heart of computer--microprocessor--is discussed with a simple file-clerk model. Basically, microprocessor consists of a CPU, some storage, data and instruction bus. The author put a great stress on CPU functionality as a device which read, modify and write data. So a computer is like a file clerk who sits at his desk all day waiting for messages from his boss. Eventually, boss send a message for him to perform a task or calculation and where to get information from his personal file cabinet. So clerk first get the number, then perform the required task or calculation and finally put the results back in his file cabinet. I think the above analogy is very power to understanding the CPU role in modern computing. In essence, CPU functionality is very simple and every other system in the computer supports the CPU to accomplish this very task of read, modify and write task endlessly.

Chapter 2: The Mechanics of Program Execution

This chapter introduces the machine language, the programming model, ISA (Instruction Set Architecture), branch instruction and fetch-execute loop. Machine language structure such as opcodes, binary encoding of arithmetic and memory access instruction is discussed for hypothetical machine DLW-1. Basically, DLW-1 has four simple instructions: add, sub, load, store. The author shows binary encoding of these instructions. For example, the format for the machine language encoding of a register-type arithmetic instruction has following format: mode (1bit), opcode (2 bits), source1 (2 bits), source 2 (2 bits), destination (2 bits) and bit 10 to 15 are all zeros. Branch and conditional instructions are covered toward the end. This chapter actually gets into mechanics of how computer represent data and instruction and work toward the goal of the computer to actually read, modify and write data.

Chapter 3: Pipelined Execution

Pipelining is a technique that computers use to speed up the execution of the program. Pipeline is explained with a simple yet powerful SUV factory analogy. Five stages of this supposed factory are presented as: chassis construction, engine placement, doors and covering mounting, wheel assembly and paint. The idea is that each stage takes an hour to finish so that while one SUV is going through the pipeline other workers are not doing anything. In order to speed up the process, a new SUV can be sent when the first SUV is in the second stage; therefore, it will speed up the process and factory output. Because of this simple analogy, I finally understand how the pipelining works in the computer system. Pipeline stalls are also discussed toward the end of the chapter because of that pipeline's average instruction throughput reduces.

Chapter 4: Superscalar Execution

This chapter continues the theme from the last chapter to improve the efficiency of microprocessor and introduces another ALU on the chip. As an example, DLW-1 is extended to DLW-2; it has now two ALU, so it's able to execute two arithmetic instructions in parallel, it's called two-way superscalar. The instruction "Decode" is relabeled as "Decode/Dispatch". Superscalar computing allows a microprocessor to increase the number of instruction per clock and can have multiple instructions write stage on each clock cycle. Toward the end of the chapter various challenges to superscalar design are discussed. Conditions under which two arithmetic instructions cannot be safely dispatch in parallel for simultaneous execution are called hazards. There are three different categories: data hazards, structure hazard and control hazards. Overall, this chapter provided good overview of pipelining and superscalar deign and it's challenges to implement them in microprocessors.

Chapter 5: The Intel Pentium and Pentium Pro

In the chapter, the focus is on the Intel Pentium architecture and start of first original Pentium which was introduced in 1993. It has two integer ALUs and a floating point ALU. It also introduces the level 1 cache and multiple pipelines which shares four stages in common: fetch, decode-1, decode-2 and write. Author then introduces Pentium pro, Pentium II and Pentium III. They were introduced in 1995, 1997, and 1999 respectively. One of key difference between Pentium pro and other processor was location of L2 cache. Pentium pro has L2 cache off die but Pentium II and Pentium III supported caches on die. Overall this chapter provides the good architectural support and comparison between Intel microprocessors and helped me to learn how they actually work.

Chapter 6: Power PC Processors

The focus on this chapter is origin and development of popular family of microprocessor: PowerPC. The 600 series was first in the line and was introduced in 1994. It has cache size of 32KB. It has classics four-stage RISC integer pipeline: fetch, decode/dispatch, execute and write-back. Furthermore it has much simpler front-end than its counterpart x86 at that time.The PowerPC 700 series also known as G3 was introduced 1997. It has cache sizes of 64KB split L1 and dedicated 1MB L2, which leads to its great success. It eventually got widespread into embedded devices and across Apple's entire product line. Then PowerPC 7400 also known as G4 introduce in 1999. It has cache of 64KB split L1 and 2MB L2 supported via on-chip tags. Consequently, it supported compelling multimedia and multiprocessor performance. Overall this chapter has good introduction of PowerPC lines of early processor, their historical development and architecture.

Chapter 7 and 8: Intel Pentium 4 vs. Motorola G4e

Pentium 4 was introduced in 2000, and it was the first major new architecture from Intel since the Pentium Pro while Motorola G4e was introduced in 2001. The two chapters built on last chapters to examine the two microprocessors side by side.

The main difference between two microprocessors technology was pipelining depth which also show the differences of design philosophy and goals of the two processors. In simple term, G4e approach of pipelining was wide and shallow. It has more functional unit in parallel in its back end. Each of G4e execution units has fairly short pipeline, so the instructions take very few cycles to move through and finish executing. While Pentium 4 takes a narrow and deep approach to moving through the instruction stream. Deep pipelining mean that it can hold and work on quite a few instructions at once and it pushes them through its narrower back end at higher rate.

Architectural differences between two processors are also discussed in great length with clearly marked diagrams. Integer units and floating points units explained for two processors. Because of Pentium narrow and deep approach, design is much more suited to floating point applications. One of the key technology is vector execution units on which both G4e and Pentium 4 rely on this for multimedia applications. Overall these two chapters explained the two processors very well and highlighted their differences in a easy to understand manner.

Chapter 9: 64 bit computing

In the chapter, concept of 64 bit computing explained and why we may use them. First of all 64 bit processor means that the processor has general purpose registers that can stores 64-bit numbers. This way ALU and register can handle more possible integer values and more possible addresses. In the nutshell, this will improve the quality of various CAD tools and 3D rendering programs such as weather and scientific simulations, 3D games. But 64-bit comes with a price, that it can squeeze the useful data out of the cache and degrade performance because now the memory address value are twice as large and they take up twice as much cache space.

Chapter 10: IBM's PowerPC 970

This chapter discusses latest line of G5 PowerPC processor which is heart of Apple computers. It has extremely wide back end and 14-stage integer pipeline that built for speed. It instruction architecture is similar to G4e, but it can have a 200 instructions on-chip in various stages on execution as compared with G4e 16 instructions and Pentium 4's 126 instruction. On the whole, this chapter provides the in-depth details of the 970 architecture and provided comparison with Pentium 4 and G4e.

Chapter 11: Understanding Caching and Performance

This chapter introduces a caching in a gentle way. CPU clocks cycles has faster than the memory and bus clock cycles and a great deal of CPU clock cycles has to be wasted in order to retrieve data from the memory. In order to address this problem, cache was introduced as early as first processor came out. Analogy with the warehouse is given as an explanation of cache, and it was a key for me to really understanding the cache concepts. Level 1 cache has an access time of 2-8 ns and consists of SRAM. Similarly, Level 2 cache has an access time of 5-12ns and consists of SRAM as well. When compared with the main memory and hard disk, they have access time of 10-60ns and 3ms-10ms respectively. Cache spatial and temporal locality is discussed in great length. Different Mapping schemes such as fully associative mapping and direct mapping are explained very clearly with simple diagrams. It is very helpful for people who are learning about cache mappings first time.

Chapter 12: Pentium M, Core Duo and Core 2 Duo.

In this chapter, Intel latest high performance and low power consumption processor Core Duo discussed. Chip multiprocessing (CMP) is where two or more processor cores are integrated onto the same silicon die and this commonly called dual-core processor. The focus of these architectures is from single-threaded performance to multithreaded performance.The Intel Core 2 Duo was introduced in 2006 and it has L1 cache of 32KB instruction and 32KB of data. L2 cache is either 2MB or 4MB. It has built in support for 64 bit. The number of improvements has been added to Core Duo processors such as more decoding logic, bigger execution hardware and memory buffer space. Overall, this chapter provided a very good in-depth knowledge of Core 2 processors and it is a must read for anyone interested in the latest development in microprocessors.

Conclusion:

This book is excellent for every level of reader from beginners to engineers with many years of experience and a technical background. Overall, this book had done a very great job explaining microprocessor architectures from beginning to latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has any interest how computers and microprocessors works.

Introductory text takes you from beginner to intermediary- and it is fun too!
I started with very limited understanding of computer architecture. What I had was a jumble of marketing terms I had picked up from reading popular PC magazines. This book helped me understand the basics of computer architecture, and quickly took me on a fun and insightful tour of major 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.
I have gained enough understanding from this book to move on to more quantitative treatments of processor design.

Very Good.
This book is very accessible.I came in with little knowledge of of a cpu works and came out with a lot more.It spends about half its time on simple theory or how a cpu works and the other half on showing how this was implemented in processors in the last three decades.

Great Intro to Microprocessor Architecture
Jon Stokes takes us on a journey through time, beginning with a trivial hypothetical processor, marching through the fundamental design decisions and trade-offs that microprocessor designers have made over the years with subsequent versions of their products.

Each major component of microprocessor architecture is described. Rarely does a book so perfectly describe a complex subject in simple and easy to understand terms. The book is full of excellent color illustrations that help drive the subject matter home.

In the introduction, Jon describes the book as an "introduction to computers that is intended to fill the gap that exists between classic but more challenging introductions to computer architecture...and the growing mass of works that are simply too basic for motivated non-specialist readers." That statement is spot on.

Topics covered include 'basic computing concepts', 'mechanics of program execution', 'pipelined execution', 'superscalar execution', '64-bit computing and X86-64' and 'caching and performance'. Processors covered include Intel (Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium 4, Pentium M, Core Duo, and Core 2 Duo) and Motorola (PowerPC 601, 603, 604, 604e, 750 aka G3, 7400 aka G4, G4E and 970 aka G5).

This book provides excellent, in-depth coverage of real-world microprocessor design. It earns top marks from me for its easy accessibility and high quality writing.

Very good introduction and overview
I liked the simplicity in the book. It is very easy to read and understand things written on it. I classify the book as introductory level in computer architecture giving an overview on the today's microprocessors. I would recommend it for those who want to learn something about microprocessors on their own, outside the class or want to read some brief details about the most current microprocessors (i.e. Core 2 Duo) or architectural comparison between different microarchitectures (i.e. IBM and Intel cores).

I don't think that the book is good as a text book for computer architecture. Instead I would recommend the Hennessy and Patterson "Computer Architecture - Quantitative Approach"

I personelly enjoyed reading this book.
... Read more

Product Description

The most exciting development in parallel computer architecture is the convergence of traditionally disparate approaches on a common machine structure. This book explains the forces behind this convergence of shared-memory, message-passing, data parallel, and data-driven computing architectures. It then examines the design issues that are critical to all parallel architecture across the full range of modern design, covering data access, communication performance, coordination of cooperative work, and correct implementation of useful semantics. It not only describes the hardware and software techniques for addressing each of these issues but also explores how these techniques interact in the same system.Examining architecture from an application-driven perspective, it provides comprehensive discussions of parallel programming for high performance and of workload-driven evaluation, based on understanding hardware-software interactions.

Customer Reviews (6)

Unsuitable as a Textbook
This book appears to be an excellent *reference* in terms of extremely detailed aspects of parallel computing architectures.

However, as a textbook, it falls far short.The information presented in the text is an extremely difficult read (from a format perspective).The sample problems presented in the body of the text bear little or no relationship to the exercise at the end of each chapter.This makes it difficult or impossible to relate the exercises back to the information presented in the chapter.Since there is no answer key, you're left guessing if you've correctly answered them.

I find it baffling that anyone would use this text in a college classroom since it makes little or no effort to actually *teach* the material it presents.

Worst possible book
The book repeats lots of things. Its not well written. Don't buy this book. You will fall sick reading this in a few days.

The Parallel Parallel to H&P
I guest lecture in a graduate level architecture course, and I always enjoy using this book as reference material when I want to lecture on cache coherency.This book is written from the correct perspective that obtaining parallelism is not easy, and so most of the book is spent on the various issues that come up when building a parallel machine.It is probably a good idea to read this book if you want to write parallel code, or if you just want to know why large scale supercomputers are not in wide use today.

Previous uniprocessor architecture knowledge is required for the more interesting chapters.Thus, this book acts as a nice sequel to Henessey and Patterson.

not well written
I think the book is not especially well written. Sentences
are long and in some cases unprecise or directly wrong.

The book often does often not provide sharp and good definitions and
it is not easy to extract the information contents, compared to many other books within this or related fields,
for an example "Computer Architecture and Parallel Processing"
by Hwang and Briggs, or books by M. Morris Mano.

Up-to-date information, but not in a simplified way
this book was the recommended textbook for parallel architecture course which i took, it is a great book,since it covers the latest fields in parallel computers.But too difficult for a beginner, cause topics areexplained in an advanced way, assuming a previous knowledge in parallelprocessing subjects.I find it more suitable for graduate or profissionalsin this field rather than undergraduate students. ... Read more

Product Description
Computer Architecture: From Microprocessors to Supercomputers provides a comprehensive introduction to computer architecture, covering topics from the design of simple microprocessors to techniques used in the most advanced supercomputers. The book covers a wide array of topics and links computer architecture to other sub-fields of computing; emphasizing both underlying theory and actual designs. The material is presented in lecture-sized chapters that make it easy for students to understand the relationships of various topics and see the big picture. The text is divided into seven parts, each with four chapters. Part I provides context and reviews prerequisite topics such as digital computer technology and computer system performance. Part II discusses instruction-set architecture (ISA). The next two parts cover the central processing unit (CPU). Part III describes the structure of arithmetic/logic units (ALUs) and Part IV is devoted to data path and control circuits. Part V deals with the memory system. Part VI covers input/output and interfacing topics and Part VII introduces advanced architectures. Computer Architecture: From Microprocessors to Supercomputers is designed for an introductory course in computer architecture. It is suitable for students majoring in electrical engineering, computer science, or computer engineering. Features BLProvides a large number of clever and often original applications, examples, and illustrations drawn from economics, political science, and biology BLContains more than 280 exercises--many classroom-tested--that are applicable to real-world issues BLExplains game theory at a level suitable for undergraduates and includes chapters on evolutionary equilibrium, repeated games, and strategic and axiomatic bargaining theory BLEmploys consistent use of notation and terminology An Instructors Manual (0-19-522213-X) and CD with PowerPointsRG are available to adopters. ... Read more

Product Description
In the early days of computer science, the interactions of hardware, software, compilers, and operating system were simple enough to allow students to see an overall picture of how computers worked. With the increasing complexity of computer technology and the resulting specialization of knowledge, such clarity is often lost. Unlike other texts that cover only one aspect of the field, The Elements of Computing Systems gives students an integrated and rigorous picture of applied computer science, as its comes to play in the construction of a simple yet powerful computer system.

Indeed, the best way to understand how computers work is to build one from scratch, and this textbook leads students through twelve chapters and projects that gradually build a basic hardware platform and a modern software hierarchy from the ground up. In the process, the students gain hands-on knowledge of hardware architecture, operating systems, programming languages, compilers, data structures, algorithms, and software engineering. Using this constructive approach, the book exposes a significant body of computer science knowledge and demonstrates how theoretical and applied techniques taught in other courses fit into the overall picture.

Designed to support one- or two-semester courses, the book is based on an abstraction-implementation paradigm; each chapter presents a key hardware or software abstraction, a proposed implementation that makes it concrete, and an actual project. The emerging computer system can be built by following the chapters, although this is only one option, since the projects are self-contained and can be done or skipped in any order. All the computer science knowledge necessary for completing the projects is embedded in the book, the only pre-requisite being a programming experience.

The book's web site provides all tools and materials necessary to build all the hardware and software systems described in the text, including two hundred test programs for the twelve projects. The projects and systems can be modified to meet various teaching needs, and all the supplied software is open-source. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Not for the weak of heart
I find this book to be highly informative and challenging, and it is not for just a casual inspection.The book is intended to be a multi-semester text book and so requires more individual effort than may be expected.

Excellent, comprehensive and fun!
First, realize that I am a cynic. I was prepared for a critical response from my students regarding the TECS class I conducted last semester (Spring 2010). However, the results were _fantastic_. I had multiple opportunities to see the "lightbulb come on" for our students. They finally understood many topics that our other classes, such as "Computer Organization," only briefly describe.

I had one 17-year-old high school student, two graduate students from outside the CS department, and about sixteen upper-level CS undergraduates. The high school student really received a postmodern computer science education in one semester. However, although she grasped the concepts, she lacked the proper programming experience necessary to be independently successful when working on the software side of the material. This was remedied by pair programming.

My two non-CS graduates _loved_ the class and were very successful. It was "just the class they were looking for."

As for my CS undergraduates, it has been a smashing success. They all emphatically felt that the class should be a required part of our curriculum and the class is now an official elective and will be taught again in the fall of 2011.

If you only read one effective book in the field of computer science, this might be the one.

This Book is One of a Kind, and a True Masterpiece
I've been a computer hobbyist since the first days of the Apple ][, and have dabbled in everything from programming to circuit board design. Despite all that time spent, there have always been huge holes in my understanding. In the back of my mind, I've always dreamed of building a simple computer from a handful of chips, designing an operating system for it, and using it to write programs. Unfortunately, the complexity of the task always seemed overwhelming. Assembly language, stack arithmetic, compiler design - all seemed much too intimidating to seriously approach. But no longer.

This book guides the reader on a journey from the basics of boolean logic and elementary gates through CPU design, assembly, virtual machines, high level languages, compilers and operating systems. How can such a task be accomplished in one 300-page volume? Simple - you do most of the work yourself. The relatively short chapters introduce each concept and suggest an approach to implementation. The reader is then given a project to complete and test. Intimidated by assembly language? You probably won't be after you've written a symbolic assembler. Confused by compilers? Imagine how you'll feel when you realize you've created one for a simple (but completely usable) high-level language.

Some degree of familiarity with a programming language will be needed to complete all of the later projects in this book. I used Java, and it worked like a charm. I'm just about finished with the book, and I'm trying to decide what to do next. I'm actually sad to be almost done! I plan to fulfill that original dream of building an actual computer from scratch - several modern microcontrollers can handle video output and keyboard input, so I think it will be doable. I feel pretty confident that after completing this book I'll be able to create a basic operating system and development toolset, which I can then spend countless hours extending!

In summary, if you want to gain an understanding of how computers really work, and if you're willing to learn by doing, this is the best book I've ever seen. I wish I could shake the authors' hands to thank them personally.

The real image of a modern computer
This work is a perfect aproach about moderns computers. The best way to
understand the real way of working of these machines.

Outstanding Learning Experience
I bought this book on a whim, but I did not expect it to contain all that it does. Having read several chapters and having completed the first couple of projects I can say that this book contains an outstanding learning experience.

In fact, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn the basics of computing. I teach mathematics at the college level, but computer science and the history of computing is a hobby. I also develop math software and do Windows programming and my background includes working on a chip for one of Hewlett-Packard's programmable calculators.

I often have students ask how they can learn more about computers because after they take the basic language and programming courses my school offers they know they need more. In fact, few of them can write real-world software because they don't have sufficient experience with a Graphical User Interface like Windows and even fewer of them have a clue as to what an Instruction Pointer is or how the hardware in a CPU works or how subroutine return addresses can be built on a LIFO stack.

Telling these students to either study symbolic logic or assembly language or to start reading Knuth's books is not very helpful because these activities are way too hard to do on your own. Having them read about Babbage and Turing can be motivating, but does not bring them close to either the real hardware or the real software.

This book is outstanding in its approach and its implementation. Once you get hooked on this you can go very far. This book builds a solid foundation and provides the deeper understanding that students really need. I compliment the authors and all those who worked on this project to make it a reality. It is simply outstandingly effective. There is nothing like it that I have ever seen.

... Read more

Product Description
Thoroughly revised and updated throughout, the Second Edition of Introduction to 80x86 Assembly Language and Computer Architecture provides students with a clear and concise introduction to the inner workings of the computer, and their many levels and functions. Through introducing real instruction sets and writing real assembly language programs, students will become acquainted with the basics of computer architecture. The Second Edition now includes the use of the Microsoft Visual Studio environment, which is widely available to students and professionals, and provides a robust environment for editing, assembling, debugging, and executing problems. The text continues to emphasize basic architecture, not just the 80x86 line, and now includes 64-bit operations but is still appropriate for those working with 32-bit computers. Programmers are expected to program effectively at any level. Ensure students are up-to-speed with Introduction to 80x86 Assembly Language and Computer Architecture, Second Edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

mov Over 32 Bit, here is 64
Yes I spelled mov wrong according to English terms on purpose. Only assembly programmers will love the joke. haha

I bought the 2nd edition (2009) version of this book. This site Amazon.com lists the pages wrong. Its actually less then 400 pages. But on the good side, the book does cover information on 32-Bit and is excellent source for learning the basics of 64-Bit programming with the CPU.

What I found interesting is it shows you info on the Microsoft Visual Studio Debugging software to track down bugs in your programming. Something you do not see in other books.

Now the Sad info on this book. The Book is geared toward Windows and Microsoft in general. A BIG NO NO in my opinion. This book should be geared for "Computers" not just Microsoft. Linux users might as well not even bother with this book. And if your like me who makes my own Operating System, this book is only slightly helpful. Glad I only paid 6 bucks.

But if your all about Windows, then this book is for you. Do to it being about Microsoft, it's the reason I gave this book only 3 stars.

Great material, but basic
After reading half of Randall Hyde's AoA, I got pissed off at reading HLA and bought this book and finished it in a month. This satisfied my expectations. This book uses MASM (Intel syntax) with Visual Studio (Express version is available for free).

Pros:
- Very clear and explicit explanations and examples
- Good structuring of the chapters
- Gives the reader excellent insight on the fundamental instructions of x86 instruction set

Cons:
- Doesn't really explain computer architecture in depth, but is expected in a 389 page book concentrating on assembly language, which I find to be the most important
- Does not show how to use functions from Visual Studio's libraries (had to learn how to prototype functions myself from Microsoft's website)

Great book for helping with shell code analysis
I needed a good book to help me with a security lab class where we wrote and examined shell code to exploit applications.I had little ASM experience and this book helped a lot.The book is the most up to date assembly book I could find, covering 64 bit architectures and more.If you need to understand how assembly works to write shell code I would highly reccomend this book.The section on understanding the stack is very useful to understand how to exploit applications and why these exploits work.The only drawback that I see to this book is the price, it is very expensive.I feel that ASM is a pretty highly specialized area which justifies the price.

Great for a beginner
I bought this book after one of my coworkers told me how great it was.I agree it is a great book, and would have been even more beneficial to me about a year earlier.This book is great for anyone interested in getting into hardware and assembly; however I wouldn't recommend this book for someone who has already entered the realm of hardware and assembly, even if like me you still consider yourself a newb.Overall it is a great book, unfortunately, it wasn't quite the book I needed.

New to Assembly - This is a keeper!
This textbox was required for my first formal course in Assembly. I have been working/debugging in assembly for the past 5 yrs but never really had the foundations.
The course I am taking and this box have certainly filled the gaps in fundamentals. The box is well written and brings you up to speed rather quickly. I highly recomend completing the exercises and debugging your own work... This box is 41 77 73 6F 6D 65 21 0D 0A ... Read more