DHNS
Ever wondered about what goes into the designing of the computer you use? It is a result of meticulous research and complex calculations. Below are some books on the subject of computer design.
Digital Logic and Computer Design
Author: M Morris Mano
Mano is an educationist in the field of computers. He discusses digital systems, and practical applications of Read-Only Memory (ROM) and Programmable Logic Array (PLA). He covers a lot of ground — from Boolean algebra, logic gates, and combinational and sequential circuits to organisation elements like Central Processing Unit (CPU) design, memory hierarchy, and data representation. Circuit minimisation, troubleshooting, and digital system design applications have also been explained.
Computer Organization and Architecture
Author: William Stallings
A subject matter expert, Stallings dives deep into the function and structure of computers. While he explains the fundamentals of computer architecture, he also offers a peek into contemporary design. He explains Input/Output (I/O) structures, and Reduced Instruction Set Computer (a type of microprocessor architecture) using the examples of Intel, ARM, and MIPS processors. The book explains how hardware and software interact to achieve efficient computation. Digital logic is another concept the book covers.
Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach
Authors: John L Hennessy and David Patterson
The book brings together computer scientist John L Hennessy, and David Patterson, a professor of computer science. They focus on the use of physical and mathematical quantities in computer architecture. They explain the design principles of microprocessors, graphics processing units, and warehouse-scale computers. The book is full of case studies. They illustrate design trade-offs, and metrics for system performance such as bandwidth and execution time.
How Computers Really Work: A Hands-On Guide to the Inner Workings of the Machine
Author: Matthew Justice
A software engineer, Justice has put together a simple and interactive guide to understand how computers perform tasks, store data, and communicate. It covers circuits, memory, clock signals, machine code, operating systems, and the Internet. It comes with diagrams, exercises and around 40 hands-on projects. These projects ask you to build circuits and a guessing game, run a web server, and write a programme in assembly language and examine the resulting machine code
Essentials of Computer Architecture
Author: Douglas Comer
Professor and researcher Douglas Comer brings attention to different aspects of hardware that programmers must be aware of. Some topics include an introduction to computer architecture, computer organisation, data representation, arithmetic and logic operations, CPU design, pipelining, memory hierarchy, and virtual memory. Input/Output systems, multicore and parallel processing, and performance optimisation have also been discussed. The book includes illustrations, diagrams, and tables.