Computer Organization

by Safwat G. Zaky, V. Carl Hamacher, Zvonko G. Vranesic, et al.

Book Overview

This text is intended to be of use for first courses in computer architecture taught in computer science and electrical/computing engineering departments. The fourth edition places more emphasis on design, and covers topics such as RISC processors, performance analysis and memory systems.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 007025883X
• ISBN13: 9780070258839
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 555 Pages
• Weight: 2.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Lucid and Timeless

A clearly written book, which employs a simple language. Another beauty of the book is that all loose ends are tied up. As sentences unfold one will realize why a particular phrase was used earlier and so on. That makes a big difference for an engineering text book. It is the best book that I know for fundamentals. Hence, it will be useful for years to come. Must have for all embedded systems people.

excellent, thorough, and clear

I had a chance to recommend this to a colleague just last week. It is easily twice the price of the "competing" books on the market, but you get what you pay for. With this book plus (perhaps) a hands-on course in the microprocessor laboratory--interfacing various logic families to output devices, e.g., or whipping up a robot of limited capabilities--the student gains the ultimate understanding of what makes computer systems "tick," from the loftiest levels of software, through the details of instruction set implementation (microprogrammed control, prefetching, cycle-stealing DMA transfers) and even the detailed digital logic circuits that underlie the CPU. I dare say the student who aces this course is all but prepared to build a simplistic CPU on his own--"simplistic" because, though the concepts can be understood quite completely, it's an intricate challenge. Notably, the book has kept pace with the times: while the PDP-11 instruction set is didactically wonderful--clear and easy and even sporting reasonable opcode mnemonics--you don't see lots of PDP or LSI (or, for that matter, VAX) minis floating around nowadays. So, HV & Z moved on to the 68000, the Power PC, perhaps even the Pentium in the latest (of five or six) editions. (Good move, gentlemen: you've actually done your homework rather than just changing "happy" to "glad" and reprinting with a new version number!) I used this book as a junior, but (a) I went to Cooper Union, which operates at an extremely high intellectual level [let's put it this way: I took a number of graduate-level computer science electives--compilers, OS, etc.--taught by Bell Labs MTSs as a junior and senior; and some "doctoral" courses that I took at Case were--honest Injun--watered-down versions of similar courses I had taken at Cooper], and (b) I graduated more than twenty years ago, and requirements always creep downward: a few credits fewer, a few tangential courses eliminated, perhaps one fewer humanities elective necessary to matriculate, etc. By 2006 standards, I would reluctantly have to reclassify HV & Z as a postgraduate text. (A little puzzle for the reader: we had to build--from NAND gates--a microcomputer featuring two three-bit registers, and my squad was the only one that implemented an "exchange registers" function that required only one cycle and used no auxiliary storage registers. How did we do it? Tick ... tick ... tick ... time's up! The circuitry compared corresponding bits from both registers. If they matched, it did nothing; if they differed, it flipped both! So, there was no literal "exchange" operation: rather, each was simultaneously reset to the value of the other.)

Excellent undergraduate text

This was the assigned text for my junior year computer engineering course on computer organization. I loved it. The explanations are clear, progress logically, and are clearly presented. I find myself picking it up from time to time, both to read the more advanced chapters out of personal interest and to look up details needed in more advanced coursework.

Excellent Book

The authors introduce every concepts in detail, and the hardware circuits are clearly illustrated.

Excellent Undergraduate Textbook for computer hardware

An excellent book, very complete and very detailed. Mostly well written and clear. It explains MC68K and Power PC archtiectures. It is very indepth when it comes to microprogramming. A good overview of Assembly concepts. You will learn about microprocessors inside out, including Intel Pentium family with superscalar features and the importance of pipelining and compiler optimization. A great reference for profesionals, a superb guide for undergrads.