The Architecture of Computer Hardware and Systems Software: An Information Technology Approach

The book is very helpful. The only complaint is that they do not have a keyword dictionary at the end of each chapter.

This book extensively covers the topics in depth, and does a good job at making a complicated subject easy to understand. While for the most part Irv does a good job of communicating technical material in an easy to understand manner, you can only simplify technical details so much, and this book is certainly not for beginners. After taking the author's class in the subject, I've come to understand that by the end of the book... Read Full Review

This book is an excellent introduction for those familiar with computers, but is neither for dummies nor for rocket scientists.It is a well-balanced book suitable for both IT students and those working in the industry who want to know what goes on in PCs and system servers. The clean layout, the sequence of information presentation and the author's writing style makes this diffcult topic a joy to read about. Some criticism... Read Full Review

From my non-experience in computer architecture. This book shows me everything I need and more about computers. I have taken the course with Mr. Englander at Bentley College. He is a great professor and writer. Indeed he knows his stuff. He even has his own computer on display at Boston's Museum of Science.

This book is an excellent starting point for the casual user that wants (or needs) to *really* understand the internals of a modern PC. Starts from ground zero and works up to a good amount of detail. After reading this, you will know most of the jargon, what is important to performance and WHY. I found it easy to skip the topics I knew and understand the following sections.