How Computers Work: Processor And Main Memory (Second Edition) Paperback – April 17, 2009

I'm a fifteen year old high school student and I have recently purchased this book. This was by far the best five dollars I have ever spent; the knowledge I have gained about computers is unimaginable.Who this book is for:-Person(s) of any age wanting to require knowledge about how computers really work-Anyone who has been interested in electronics-Hobbyists of electronics who create and mod projects on a daily basisWho this book is for not:-Person(s) not wanting to invest time into learning about what is dominating past, current, and future decadesAs a fifteen year old I haven't been through most high school science classes, nor math classes and this books was very understandable to me. The book starts out as a simple Light circuit with a battery and light bulb and through pages gains complexity and different circuits. The book also explains simple programing and how a computer would use these circuits to store, erase, and read data.The two main parts of a computer this books is revolved around is the processor and the main memory; it fully explains both to its fullest potential and how each use each other to create programs. The final result leaves you with how memory works, and how a processor functions with that memory. It also leaves you with knowing how binary and simple programs work by using the processor and memory.All in all, its a marvelous read.

Cheapest book ever and yet I loved it.It feels so good to understand computers now. I reconstructed Roger Youngs's computer with logic gates. This computer he created works and is fully functional. I was afraid that I was gonna waste my money buying another book called code, because perhaps I wouldn't understand it, but this book gave me the confidence to read the other.I would recommend this book to my friends as I learned essential workings of the cpu and memory- which is priceless.The second unit on programming is the only complaint I have as I wished the schematics for that computer was explained, and yes I am aware that the techniques for adding in this book are outdated but It is nice to know we have a better sollution to adding now called the ripple adder or better biproducts such as the cla or mcla. Which would have been nice to introduce this rather than the outdated one, but better yet I learned about clock speed, cpu logic, and memory allocation- for 2 bucks that was an essential bargain.

This book provides a good introduction to the way in which relays (which can be understood to work as transistors, though a section that fully expanded into transistors would have been nice) are integrated and signals passed for executing commands and reading memory. It presents the information in a very incremental fashion, but one still needs to expend effort (as one does in any learning situation) to trace the various paths to understand what relays are open/closed and why. The diagrams take work to trace, and as with any technical schematic, glancing at the diagram is insufficient. In any given diagram, some relays are open, some closed, and the issue is to work through why is a relay open/closed, and what signal needs to be applied to change it.I would have liked a book that went further and continued to build upon what was presented. For example, getting to the point of showing a full 8-bit system. In addition, in this current world, I would have liked to see assembly commands built around the x86 platform.Nonetheless, if you are like me in not having worked with computers at this level, despite years of programming them, this book is a good introduction into how the logic circuits are created.

Arrived undamaged

You want to know how a computer REALLY works from the ground up? By that, I mean starting out with switches, bits, gates, and then building into bigger structures such as latches, flip flops, RAM, ALU, and the CPU, and seeing how each piece fits together into a coherent whole? Then DO NOT get this book! Sure, it SEEMS to do what I just said. But the big downer is that there are no abstractions... that is, no "block diagram" simplifications. Each page near the midpoint and on is basically an array of about a hundred relays. CPU's are hard enough as is to try and figure out where each byte is headed, and the time spent trying to see which relay is doing what is pointless. This is why we have "chunking" of ideas, i.e., abstractions. Two books that are MUCH better at this are Code by Petzold and But How Do It Know by Scott. The latter I think is much better at actually getting to the gory detail of wiring up a control for the CPU, but is somewhat a dry read. However, you could actually build fully what he is talking about, and I intend to. The former is a much better read and more enjoyable ride, but not every detail is there 100% and I somewhat find it structured in a less-obvious way that But How Do It Know. So, get both of these books instead!