eroston's review against another edition
Outstanding, accessible introduction to the machines that run every aspect of modern life. How to build logic gases isn't page-turning material, but nobody said complexity was going to be easy.
txas's review against another edition
4.0
Quirky and surprising. Slices thorugh the required electronics stuff to understand how computers work. Excessive detail at times, unsifficient in other places. Altoghether good and informative.
jhoover's review against another edition
2.0
Started off so good with great explanations, then got unbelievably bogged down in details and technicality.
sandarulj's review against another edition
5.0
I have no words to describe this masterpiece. By far, the most satisfying reading experience I've ever had.
I wish I had read this before starting my software engineering bachelor's programme. This would've laid the perfect foundation for the next four years of the course.
But even now, after graduating as a software engineer, I still gathered a life-changing amount of knowledge and understanding from this book. I could fill that gap in my head between the programmes I've been coding this whole time and the hardware that they ran on, which I had a very vague idea about. I finally understand how the inside of a computer functions; how the code I write makes the computer actually do stuff; basically, how it all connects: hardware and software. A revelation!
I'm certain that this will be my favorite book for quite a while now. I see computers in a different way now; in a much more detailed, low-level, and intimate way. IMO, this book should be mandatory for any computer-related course. To conclude, I'll say this again: what an absolute masterpiece of literature!
I wish I had read this before starting my software engineering bachelor's programme. This would've laid the perfect foundation for the next four years of the course.
But even now, after graduating as a software engineer, I still gathered a life-changing amount of knowledge and understanding from this book. I could fill that gap in my head between the programmes I've been coding this whole time and the hardware that they ran on, which I had a very vague idea about. I finally understand how the inside of a computer functions; how the code I write makes the computer actually do stuff; basically, how it all connects: hardware and software. A revelation!
I'm certain that this will be my favorite book for quite a while now. I see computers in a different way now; in a much more detailed, low-level, and intimate way. IMO, this book should be mandatory for any computer-related course. To conclude, I'll say this again: what an absolute masterpiece of literature!
ajurry's review against another edition
5.0
Great book! If you want to have an introduction on how we ended up with computers and how they fundamentally work then this is the book for you!
matthewdeanmartin's review against another edition
3.0
I really wanted to like this book more than I did. The difficultly of chapters varied so widely that I went from feeling talked down to, to where I thought "Wow! I always wondered how that worked", to "Whu? This doesn't make any sense-- this is so over my head". The harder parts should have been more like a text book and less like a pop-science book (or omitted for being more than can be absorbed while reading a armchair pop-science book).