Name: Code
Rating: 4.358974358974359 (39 reviews)
ISBN: 9780735611313

Charles Petzold

The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Code

Rito Ghosh

This is an overall fantastic book. I will start recommending this book to others now. It is that good.

He tries to explain all the levels of a computer, and he does so efficiently and beautifully.

The only problem that I have with this book is the chapter "Two Classic Microprocessors". There wasn't much to learn. Only huge walls of text was shoved down the throat of the readers. It was unnecessarily long and descriptive in an annoying way. What was the need? The author could have just talked about these and then moved on, but he elaborated on these, quoted and explained the literature that accompanied these processors. It was very boring. That's why I reduced a star.

This book answers so many questions that you might have as a user of computing devices. You get answers to many questions reading this. Such questions bug you for a long time, but you are too reluctant to look them up.

You get clear knowledge of buses and registers, which are taught in colleges, but college education suffers from elementitis. The smaller components are never brought together for the students. This book does that job. This book describes and teaches all major and important components, and then put them together to build a whole, functioning computer. That is wonderful. This book should be read for this reason alone.

If you are interested in actually building a comluter from ground-up, check out Noam Nissan's Elements of Computing Systems. Here, you will be building a computer yourself, from scratch.

A discussion of the history and future of coding theory celebrates the ingenuity of language systems and their uses from Braille and Morse code through binary codes to 32-bit operating systems.

Simon Elliott Stegall

I think I comprehended about 25% of this book. Super interesting stuff.

What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries. Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who’s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines. It’s a cleverly illustrated and eminently comprehensible story—and along the way, you’ll discover you’ve gained a real context for understanding today’s world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. No matter what your level of technical savvy, CODE will charm you—and perhaps even awaken the technophile within.

Lorenzo Barretta

Mike Engel

Taylor Murphy

Daniel Voicu

Maanit Madan

The classic guide to how computers work, updated with new chapters and interactive graphics

"For me, Code was a revelation. It was the first book about programming that spoke to me. It started with a story, and it built up, layer by layer, analogy by analogy, until I understood not just the Code, but the System. Code is a book that is as much about Systems Thinking and abstractions as it is about code and programming. Code teaches us how many unseen layers there are between the computer systems that we as users look at every day and the magical silicon rocks that we infused with lightning and taught to think."

- Scott Hanselman, Partner Program Director, Microsoft, and host of Hanselminutes

Computers are everywhere, most obviously in our laptops and smartphones, but also our cars, televisions, microwave ovens, alarm clocks, robot vacuum cleaners, and other smart appliances. Have you ever wondered what goes on inside these devices to make our lives easier but occasionally more infuriating?

For more than 20 years, readers have delighted in Charles Petzold's illuminating story of the secret inner life of computers, and now he has revised it for this new age of computing. Cleverly illustrated and easy to understand, this is the book that cracks the mystery. You'll discover what flashlights, black cats, seesaws, and the ride of Paul Revere can teach you about computing, and how human ingenuity and our compulsion to communicate have shaped every electronic device we use.

This new expanded edition explores more deeply the bit-by-bit and gate-by-gate construction of the heart of every smart device, the central processing unit that combines the simplest of basic operations to perform the most complex of feats. Petzold's companion website, CodeHiddenLanguage.com, uses animated graphics of key circuits in the book to make computers even easier to comprehend.

In addition to substantially revised and updated content, new chapters include:

Chapter 18:  Let's Build a Clock!
Chapter 21:  The Arithmetic Logic Unit
Chapter 22:  Registers and Busses
Chapter 23:  CPU Control Signals
Chapter 24:  Jumps, Loops, and Calls
Chapter 28: The World Brain
From the simple ticking of clocks to the worldwide hum of the internet, Code reveals the essence of the digital revolution.

Code The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

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