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Summary: An absolutely incredible book.
Review: This book is a page-turner. You literally can't put it down. Which is utterly amazing considering it is non-fiction! I am a master's candidate in Computer Science and I learned a great many things. Yet, the language and approach are so accesible that anyone who's graduated high school has more than enough technical background to comprehend the information presented. If you are at all interested in computers or digital media, you simply have to buy this book.
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Summary: Excellent Overview of the PC!
Review: This book is an excellent overview of the inner workings of the computer. Petzold does a great job of explaining everything from the origin of circuits to binary numbers and digital electronics. This is a must book for anyone that wants to take computers seriously!
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Summary: Excellent Book on computer organization
Review: This book presents a simple but complete view of the inner workings of a computer.
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Summary: Always interesting
Review: This book reminded me of "Connections". If you are unclear about the difference between binary, hex, and decimals, or what an opcode is, and what it does for you, this is a great book. He has written it like a guidebook. I liked this book very much and have recommended it to several of my friends.
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Summary: Techie Heaven
Review: This book was absolutely excellent. It is quite possibly the only book of its kind, as it combines an easily understandable style with a highly technical subject. Petzold explains not only the workings of a simple processor, but also the history of its design and the theory behind it. For anyone who wants to learn how a microprocessor works without buying a college text, this is the book to buy.
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Summary: A Great Book for Novices or Techies
Review: This is a fantastic explanation of how computers work, from the ground up. Petzold is thorough enough to let his readers understand much of what goes on in computres and other digital logic systems, but doesn't go in deep enough to confuse them.
I'm a software engineering student; so computers are no stranger, but I still learned quite a bit from this book - I even used it as a reference in a computer engineering course on a few occasions. On the other hand, my non-technical family has had pretty good success in comprehending Petzold's expert explanation.
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Summary: Fascinating
Review: This is a fascinating book on many levels. Extremely well written. For anybody who uses computers in their work and always wondered what goes on under the covers, this book touches on just about every area and goes into great detail in some areas. On the other hand, don't buy this book if you want practical information about how to be a better programmer or whatever. This book is definetely suited to an enthusiast who is honestly interested in learning arcane details. It isn't going to help anyone get a higher salary or a promotion. That's what I really liked about this book. It was truly different from any other book you will ever buy from Microsoft Press or like publishers. My only real critiscism is that it seems to run out of steam at the end. Chapter after chapter is devoted to the inner workings of logic gates, memory, and so on, but almost nothing is said about operating systems.
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Summary: A Book Many Waited For
Review: This is a great book! A individual that has a desire comprehending the computer and the way it works would find this book very satisfying . One other similar book that I read was, Introduction to Microprocessors by John Crisp available by amazon and highly recommended .
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Summary: Great for filling in knowledge gaps
Review: This is a great read for anyone who, like myself, is involved with computers, but never took computer science classes. Parts of the book were very detailed, and I ended up skimming over them (a few parts from chapter 17 on). This is no fault of the author, but the nature of the subject is very complex. This didn't impair my overall comprehension of the concepts in the book...I'll re-read the difficult parts in time. Overall, I highly recommend this book. My goal was to fill in the gaps in my computer science knowledge, and the book met that goal to my satisfaction. I debated whether to give this 4 or 5 stars...I'd probably have gone with 4.5 if that option was available. The book gets off to a bit of a slow start, and I thought it could have used some more information on networking and modern computing. But for the price of the book and the clarity of the information, I'll give it 5 stars. Outstanding value.
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Summary: Not his best yet good reading for the target audience.
Review: This is the book you would give to your manager and cohorts (non-technically inclined) to know more about the basics for computing. I have been an avid reader of his other articles and books from the earliest editions (on Windows Programming which is considered to be a "classic"). I was much surprised to see this book lacking information on Object-Oriented technologies - which has to be the major paradigm developed in the past two decades.
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