Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach

Media:	Hardcover
Author:	John Hennessey, John L. Hennessy, David Goldberg
Publisher:	Morgan Kaufmann Pub
Release date:	01 January, 1996
List price:	~~$85.95~~
Our price:	that is 100% off!

Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach

Average rating:

Not for introduction, this is an advanced book !

The complaints of one of the reviewer are perfectly justified in the sense that using this book as your first one in "computer architecture" will probably make you leave the subject very soon. This is an advanced book discussing the problems of computer architecture but with the "instruction set" point of view. The intent of this book is not to teach you basics in computer architecture!

For introductory textbooks, rather go to the other one from Hennessy and Patterson "Computer organization and design : The hardware/software interface" or Tanenbaum's "Structured Computer Organization".

However, with considerations about the scope of the book, it is excellent even if not easy. I don't think there something better on the market in the subject.

A tough book to get through - but worth the effort.

Need to get inside the hardware, and don't mind a few bumps along the way? Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach will take you deeper than you probably ever thought you wanted to go. The focus is on uniprocessor architecture, although it does provide introductory coverage of multiprocessors. This work covers the various designs and alternatives for instruction sets, pipelining, cache, memory, I/O, etc. and provides current examples as well as historical references. The weakness of the book is that the exercises at the end of each chapter go beyond the scope of the material covered. Although certainly worthwhile and complimentary to the material presented in the chapters, the exercises seem to be material for the next level. The authors should either make the exercises more related to the chapter explanations and examples, or they should offer relevant extended references. It would also be helpful if they provided an answer set to a percentage of the exercises. The user of the 2nd edition is well advised to grab the errata file from the publisher, see Preface, as there are many errors in the printing. Overall, I would recommend this book to those who are serious about gaining an advanced understanding of modern computer architecture. Be advised, a good basic understanding is necessary before tackling this work.

If this is the best there is, God help us.

For one thing, if you are interested in this book, chances are that you are taking a class in computer architecture and are required to buy it. If that is the case, all of the high-brow comments won't do you any good. You are forced to suffer through this monstrosity. That was my position. Fortunately you will be able to get a more modern edition with all the thousands of typos and errata fixed, or so you hope. Problems at the end of the chapter, you ask? Get that blade ready to cut your wrists. Yea, it's simple math. You'll never use anything more than multiplication and division here, but I submit that it is almost impossible to answer some of these questions without first knowing what the answer is. The examples in the chapter do next to nothing to prepare you for the exercises, and later in the book, the questions get so complex that there must be 25 variables to consider. If the author was trying to trick you, he could throw all sorts of extra things just to trip you up. You would dutifully find something to do with them. A professor that tries to teach this entire book in a semester is a maniac, but they all try. Also they may try to go out of order on you with the chapters. Beware. Worse still is trying to go in order. Chapter 4 alone will stop you cold. I honestly think you can devote an entire semester just to some of these individual chapters. The book assumes you are very smart. You need to be someone with both a degree in EE, CS, and who has work experience dealing with hardware. My bottom line is that I am trying to warn you about what you are getting yourself into with this book. It is no easy read, no quick fix, no Bible of computer architeture that would allow you to use it as reference material in your job. If you were to look something up, it would take you a day and a half just to remember back to what the hell they were talking about. Somebody needs to do a better job than these geniuses.

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