Computer Systems Organization and Architecture

I used this book for an undergrad Architecture course. I had a great teacher, and we only looked at certain sections in the book. There is an awful lot to cover in a single semester. The book is written for students with very little formal electronics knowledge, but you do need to know some basic logic and hardware concepts. It is based on the i86 architecture, making generalizations where possible. If you have a strong background, or want to learn very detailed concepts - then there are better choices. Sometimes this book over-simplifies concepts to reach its intended audience. I later found the book useful as a reference tool in a graduate architecture class. Especially the sections on memory - cache, virutal, pagefiles, etc.. Even though my grad class was on the MiPS architecture, the concepts are the same. Overall, this was a decent text for an undergraduate course. As other reviewers, (good and bad) have noted - when you are learning, you should always use additional references. Don't depend on this book alone to teach you.

Read this book for a Computer Architecture class and let me just say, Wow!!! This is a great book, front to back. Although the book claims to not have a prerequisite, I would not recommend it. A little background in electronics and knowledge of a high level language would surely give you a good background to get the most out of this book.

I read the entire book from cover to cover for a computer engineering course. It definitely went well beyond my wildest expectations in depht and material. Dr. Carpinelli begins each section by relating the new topic to a "Very Simple CPU", then to a "Relatively Simple CPU", and finally to an Intel 8085 processor. This gradual approach is what really makes this book so good, and is what helped me absorb the material so well.

I used this book in Com. Architecture course. It's cover everything from state machine design to parallel processing. Every topics come in correct order and very clear in explanation and example. A lot of pictures and excellent organize.