Rating: 
Summary: Much improved 2nd edition
Review: Everything that was good about the first edition is still here, and what was not-so-good has been improved--production values (page layout in particular), explanations.... If you're interested in an excellent bottoms-up approach, here it is!This is what I said about the first edition:
... a good introductory book. I'm a tech writer with a background in the sciences, and used this book in a "Computers from the bottom up" class. We had an excellent teacher, and without her the obscurities of presentation would have defeated several class members. On the minus side: From a writer's point of view, what is needed is another editing pass to get rid of poor sentence sequences and poorly explained exercises. Also, it's sometimes difficult to follow examples with illustrations on one page and verbal description on another: production values need to be rethought. From a student's point of view, much of the essential information is buried in small print sections, which make the book frustrating to use. But-- on the plus side, the book, used with the excellent Power Point slides provided online, is the best thing available for a true bottoms-up approach. It discusses the basic logic components and their relationship to Boolean logic, instruction sets, and programming at a basic level. Personally, I found the LC-2 simulator great fun to use, very helpful to my understanding of "how things work".
Rating:
Summary: Good book for entry level
Review: From this book, you can learn both computer hardware and softwore such as LC-2 programming and introduction to C program. I taught this class in the university for 2 semesters already. At the very beginning, maybe you will think it's hard, but after that, you will find the book is very useful even after you become professional. This is one of the best books I have ever read!
Rating: 
Summary: needs improvement.
Review: I agree that the first part of the book is great but there are few chapters in the "C and beyond" that are of the same caliber as the first part. The only chapters worth reading closely in that section are the chapters about the function call stack and recursion. Kernighan and Ritchie 2nd edition is a much better choice for people familiar with programming. There are also numerous introductory C books like Deitel, Beginning with C by Ron House, etc.
Rating:
Summary: It's Great
Review: I am a self taught programmer, and there were large gaps in my fundamental knowledge of computers and how they operate. This book did a fantastic job in filling that void. It should be required reading for any aspiring programmer. There are a few typo's, but nothing major. The authors walk you through a basic understanding of computer architecture and binary logic, all the way to understanding C language. An easy and interesting read. It really helped me a lot!
Rating:
Summary: It's Great
Review: I am a self taught programmer, and there were large gaps in my fundamental knowledge of computers and how they operate. This book did a fantastic job in filling that void. It should be required reading for any aspiring programmer. There are a few typo's, but nothing major. The authors walk you through a basic understanding of computer architecture and binary logic, all the way to understanding C language. An easy and interesting read. It really helped me a lot!
Rating:
Summary: Clear, easy-to-understand goodness.
Review: I started out knowing next to nothing about Computer Architecture, and yet I was still able to, by myself, read and understand most everything in this book. The chapters are laid out intelligently, with each one building on what was taught before. The diagrams are clear and helpful, and there are plenty of tables and example problems (very clear, thoroughly worked out examples!) spread throughout.
While there is a chapter or two in the middle that people who already are familiar with C might find tedious, they're pretty clearly marked and easy enough to skim through.
I definitely recommend this book to any beginner wishing to learn about computer architecture.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Lifesaver!
Review: Thank God for the clarity and simplicity of these authors! Excellent teachers can take the seemingly impossible and make it comprehensible, and that is what these authors have done here! I had to repeat this class because of poor teaching, and even worse authorship! I felt like a real moron after my first failure and was not looking forward to taking the class again! Thanks to these professionals my grade for the class came up to a B, but even more importantly my understanding of the subject (which is crucial to my future in computer science) flourished! The CD with its interpreter and debugger are priceless in the process of understanding the subject matter! My hat is off to these fine writers! Thank you! :-)
Rating:
Summary: Patt's book is amrit to aspiring computer engineers
Review: This book is a must for all aspiring computer engineers. It introduces a computer - LC2 (Little Computer - 2) which was made just for this book - and its course. LC2 is a reduced instruction set computer making it easy to understand how the insides of a computer works. Patt is one of the best professor's teaching the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible book
Review: This book is absolutely terrible. Not only is it completely unintelligible, but it contains several extremely bad attempts at humor. There is no explanation as to how one is supposed to go about completing the problems at the end of each section, and the problems themselves are extremely difficult. Professors, please, do not use this terrible book. I still have nightmares about LC-2.
Rating:
Summary: Contrary to Popular Review
Review: This book was required for a lower level electrical engineering course. The main complaint I would have is that I found many sections of this book rather convoluted. It simply did not come across as clear as it could be.
The approach is from the bottom up, which is wonderful to aid in understanding how a computer physically computes. Most programmers work at such a high level of abstraction that they never really know what is going on at the lower levels. This book does well to clear the way and connect the physics of computing with computer science.
Overall I would not suggest this book as a text to read outside of academia as a means to gain knowledge of the more fundamental workings of computer systems. Due to clarity issues, it will not be one that I keep around as reference.
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