The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken

Book Overview

A textbook with a hands-on approach that leads students through the gradual construction of a complete and working computer system including the hardware platform and the software hierarchy.

In the early days of computer science, the interactions of hardware, software, compilers, and operating system were simple enough to allow students to see an overall picture of how computers worked. With the increasing complexity of computer technology...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262640686
• ISBN13: 9780262640688
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 1.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.9" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

If only I could give more than 5 stars

I have nothing but the most positive things to say about The Elements of Computing Systems. If you ever wanted to know how a computer worked -- I mean REALLY know -- read Charles Petzold's book CODE. If you also wanted to BUILD a computer, read The Elements of Computing Systems. This book takes you from a single basic logic gate to a working computer, then proceeds to design software and even a simple operating system that runs on it. (Caveat: there are 2 things you do not create yourself: the system clock and the base module for flip-flops. There's a good reason why for each. Again, to understand these parts better, I highly recommend Petzold's CODE.) All chapters are independent and can be done in any order, but the order they have it in is best. I think the authors intend for TECS to be a textbook for a class but I'm reading it on my own and it's perfect for self study. Before you read, make sure you consult the book's website's errata because there are a few typos. I also have nothing but the highest praises for the accompanying software. The authors make freely available a small open source software suite to help develop the computer you're making. Full tutorials are online. The test suites are fully scriptable. The scripts for actually testing your work are included and there's also an appendix in the book explaining the scripting language used. The software is all written in Java and will run on Windows, Linux, or Mac. Everything is kept as simple as possible without sacrificing any understanding. A perfect learning tool.

In a League of its Own

As far as I know, this is the only books that gives you a hands on demonstration of how a computer works from its basic logic circuits, to modeling a central processing unit, random access memory, and eventually a complete computer. After creating a simple, but complete computer, you will learn how machine language works, learn to use a modern virtual machine language to generate machine code, and learn to use high level object oriented language that can generate virtual machine language. After creating a computer and its programming languages, you can actually write programs and see how they work on your new simulated computer. When I first started reading this book, I through that it would be an amazing high school course. The first part of the book is simple and powerful. However, some projects in the second part of the book require a basic knowledge of at least one programming language to perform, and many high school students will not have this. As a computer science student, I thought this was the best book I have ever used. It shows you the big picture in hands of fashion. Many courses will try to teach you about hardware, or programming, or logic, but very few will have you design a computer from scratch (which is made much easier than it sounds) and then have you run software on that computer. This is an amazing book and it should be required reading for computer science students.

Without any alternative

I have used this book in my computer organization class (Istanbul Bilgi University, Computer Science dept.) and I must admit that it brought a very fresh perspective to second year computer science students. For the first time they were able to see the process of designing a computer from the ground up. The book is very suitable for self-study or classroom use: it has an excellent website, all the required HDL simulator, assembler, CPU and VM emulator and compiler are freely available and easy to run on any platform (they are all coded in Java). Of course there are simplifications such as the lack of interrupts and multhithreading but this book prepares the students very well for 3rd and 4th year courses. Every chapter has very well and clearly defined goals and projects that are %100 self-contained. That means even if you skip a chapter you can work out the next project without any loss in implementation. If you or your students want to have a grasp what it means to build a computer starting from logic gates, hardware definition languages, up to the ALU, RAM, CPU, assembler, virtual machine and compilation of an object oriented high level language, then this book is the best choice. It is one of the most hands-on book I've ever seen in this subject matter and at that intermediate level.

High-quality accessible projects, ideal for self-study

I highly recommend this project-based book to anyone with a passion for programming and the curiosity to dig below its high-level incarnations. This book will show you how to build a computing system from the ground up. In the process, you'll learn about combinatorial & sequential logic, ALU & memory chips, CPU & von Neumann architecture, machine & assembly language, assemblers, virtual machines, parsing and code generation. The hardware part is built using a freely provided Hardware Simulator and the software part can be tackled in any programming language(s) you choose. You can get started right now by going to the book's website, [...], which has some sample chapters and all the tools (like the Hardware Simulator) you'll need to complete these wonderful projects. Each project comes with extensive test cases, giving you immediate feedback on your progress.

Fantastic book--Ideal for self-study

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in learning about computer science. The book is organized around the idea of building a computer from the fundamental logic gates up--starting with the hardware (combinational logic gates, arithmetic logic units, sequential logic gates, the CPU and memory) and then through the software hierarchy (starting with the machine language, and working up through the assembler, a virtual machine, a compiler for a high-level language, and an operating system). As a "by-product," one learns, by very relevant examples, many fundamental concepts of computer science. You can just read the book, but the best idea is to follow the authors' advice and do the projects where you implement every necessary piece of the computer system yourself. The projects are all very well organized. All the software necessary to emulate any part of the computer is available for free download from the authors' web-site. It all works beautifully. If you want to skip any of the projects, you can, because the software is organized in such a way that it will use built-in modules instead of the ones you built if necessary. The authors seem to have extensively tested the whole approach through the courses they have taught using this material. I also noticed that Harvard's Computer Science 101 course is being taught based on this book. I have been using the book for self-study with absolutely no problems--in fact I have never had such a great experience with a self-study course. All you need is a Windows or Linux (edit: Mac OS X works fine too) computer and access to the internet, and you can give yourself a wonderful education in computer science. In terms of prerequisites, you only really need to have some experience with programming (e.g. with C, or ideally with Java or Python). I think that the book should work well for students or hobbyists who don't have any more experience than that, but it is also great for much more experienced students, as a kind of integrative summary of the field. I also think the book is perfect for graduate students or researchers from other fields who want to learn how digital hardware and software systems are actually engineered. Finally, I just want to compliment the authors on the extraordinary care that they have taken with the whole project. The computer design that you build up is wonderfully elegant--at every stage the design is just as simple as it can be while being sufficient. Every piece of emulation software works as advertised. Even the extra powerpoint or .pdf tutorials are nicely done. This is really quality work, and using it is just a real pleasure. Finally, the source code for all the software provided by the authors is available, so if you wanted to extend the provided emulators, you could do that. In summary, I give this book my unqualified highest recommendation.