Product Description

Thanks to the continued exponential advances in semiconductor design and the demands of evolving and emerging application domains, the field of computer architecture has never been more dynamic. This, the first major book of computer architecture readings in over two decades, captures this dynamism and reveals Computer Architecture's rich history of practice.

Customer Reviews (7)

Review of Readings in CA Reader/Book
The book was a little more worn than I thought it would be when I got it, but no complaints otherwise.

Definitely not worth the 90$ price!
I felt ripped off by this book. I bought it because my then research advisor was recommending it for a course. I agree that this is a collection of seminal research papers in architecture. But, any research student with access to IEEE/ACM can easily get hold of these papers for free. Save 90$ by not buying this book, and instead take prints of the papers.

Amazing!
I will not write a long review: The papers that are contained in this book can be seen by "Looking Inside" this book, above.

Few words: If you are passionate about computer architecture, this book ought to be on your shelf. Period.

Comprehensive, good selection
The editors did a great job selecting papers that give one a great overview of computer architecture. That is, they spared one the task of looking for paper selection themselves. Quality of writing and presentation varies across the papers - unfortunately, scientific writing tends to be weak in these areas, but one can hardly blame the editors.

Very Lengthy and Repetative
The book has been prescribed in our college for advanced comp arch. I found that advanced comp arch was the most difficult subject because of this book. Buy this book only if you are forced by the university. ... Read more

Product Description
The Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) concept is an important new way of optimizing computer architecture. This book demonstrates the practicality of the RISC approach. Integrated circuits offer compact and low-cost implementation of digital systems, and provide performance gains through their high-bandwidth on-chip communication. In a single chip microcomputer, however, the implementation trade-offs are different from those in traditional broad-based main frame computers. Because the total silicon area and the amount of allowable power dissipation are strictly limited, extra resources added to speed up some function of the chip will typically slow down other operations. This work demonstrates that the recent trend in computer architecture toward the use of increasingly complex instruction sets leads to the inefficient use of those scarce resources. Reduced Instruction Set Computer architectures offer an alternative by allowing for the effective use of on-chip transistors in functional units that provide fast access to frequently used operands and instructions.Contents: Introduction (the RISC Concept, Effective Use of Hardware Resources, Evolution of the Berkeley RISC Project); The Nature of General Purpose Computations; The RISC I and 11 Architecture and Pipeline; The RISC II Design and Layout; Debugging and Testing RISC II; Additional Hardware Support for General-Purpose Computations; Conclusions; Appendix A: Detailed Description of the RISC 11 Architecture.Manolis G. H. Katevenis received his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. Reduced Instruction Set Computer Architectures for VLSI is the winner of the 1984 Doctoral Dissertation Award. ... Read more

Product Description
This well-respected text for a first level course on computer organization has been thoroughly revised and updated. Computer Organization is suitable for a one-semester course in engineering or computer science programs and has a good mix if hardware- and software-oriented topics.

The goal of the book is to illustrate the principles of computer organization by using a number of extensive examples drawn from commercially available computers.The authors feel this approach motivates the students and is the most practical.The machines discussed in Hamacher et. al. are the Motorola 680X0 and 683XX families, Intel 80X86 and Pentium families, ARM family, Sun Microsystems Sparc family, and DEC(Compaq) Alpha family.The 68000, Pentium, and ARM are used as detailed examples early in the book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Lucid and Timeless
A clearly written book, which employs a simple language. Another beauty of the book is that all loose ends are tied up. As sentences unfold one will realize why a particular phrase was used earlier and so on. That makes a big difference for an engineering text book.

It is the best book that I know for fundamentals. Hence, it will be useful for years to come.

Must have for all embedded systems people.

Has been there on many occasions
Helped me in my undergrad (older version). Helped me when I gave subject GRE recently. Covered Pipelining superscalar, out-of-order execution processors, caching and secondary storage, combinational and sequential ckt review etc real well. No computer architecture book covered them all so clearly, and in one book.

excellent, thorough, and clear
I had a chance to recommend this to a colleague just last week. It is easily twice the price of the "competing" books on the market, but you get what you pay for. With this book plus (perhaps) a hands-on course in the microprocessor laboratory--interfacing various logic families to output devices, e.g., or whipping up a robot of limited capabilities--the student gains the ultimate understanding of what makes computer systems "tick," from the loftiest levels of software, through the details of instruction set implementation (microprogrammed control, prefetching, cycle-stealing DMA transfers) and even the detailed digital logic circuits that underlie the CPU.

I dare say the student who aces this course is all but prepared to build a simplistic CPU on his own--"simplistic" because, though the concepts can be understood quite completely, it's an intricate challenge. Notably, the book has kept pace with the times: while the PDP-11 instruction set is didactically wonderful--clear and easy and even sporting reasonable opcode mnemonics--you don't see lots of PDP or LSI (or, for that matter, VAX) minis floating around nowadays. So, HV&Z moved on to the 68000, the Power PC, perhaps even the Pentium in the latest (of five or six) editions. (Good move, gentlemen: you've actually done your homework rather than just changing "happy" to "glad" and reprinting with a new version number!)

I used this book as a junior, but (a) I went to Cooper Union, which operates at an extremely high intellectual level [let's put it this way: I took a number of graduate-level computer science electives--compilers, OS, etc.--taught by Bell Labs MTSs as a junior and senior; and some "doctoral" courses that I took at Case were--honest Injun--watered-down versions of similar courses I had taken at Cooper], and (b) I graduated more than twenty years ago, and requirements always creep downward: a few credits fewer, a few tangential courses eliminated, perhaps one fewer humanities elective necessary to matriculate, etc. By 2006 standards, I would reluctantly have to reclassify HV&Z as a postgraduate text.

(A little puzzle for the reader: we had to build--from NAND gates--a microcomputer featuring two three-bit registers, and my squad was the only one that implemented an "exchange registers" function that required only one cycle and used no auxiliary storage registers. How did we do it? Tick ... tick ... tick ... time's up! The circuitry compared corresponding bits from both registers. If they matched, it did nothing; if they differed, it flipped both! So, there was no literal "exchange" operation: rather, each was simultaneously reset to the value of the other.)

Excellent undergraduate text
This was the assigned text for my junior year computer engineering course on computer organization.I loved it.The explanations areclear, progress logically, and are clearly presented.I find myself picking it up from time to time, both to read the more advanced chapters out of personal interest and to look up details needed in more advanced coursework.

Excellent Book
After reading this book do not believe you'll know everyting about computing , but you'll know more than others do. ... Read more

Product Description

This book blends traditional teaching approaches with the use of mathematics, together with the use of a hardware description language and a concrete processor as vehicles for "hands-on" modelling and experimenting with digital logic and processor design. This unique approach encourages readers to derive their own conclusions via experimentation, enabling them to discover for themselves the fundamental and exciting topics of computer architecture. Features: includes a wide-ranging introductory chapter; outlines basic methods for evaluating processors; investigates advanced topics in processor design; presents a detailed description of a development tool-chain; provides a stand-alone tutorial on using SPIM; focuses on aspects of compilers which are closely tied to the processor; examines the concept of efficient programming; concludes every chapter with a set of example problems. This practical, reader-friendly textbook has been written with undergraduates in mind, and is suitable for self-study.

Product Description
Praise for Service-Oriented Architecture

"This book provides a superb overview of the SOA topic. Marks and Bell provide practical guidance across the entire SOA life cycle-from business imperatives and motivations to the post-deployment business and technical metrics to consider. With this book, Marks and Bell demonstrate a unique ability to take the complex dynamics of SOA, and through an eloquent set of metaphors, models, and principles, provide an understandable and insightful how-to manual for both technical and business executives. This will become a required handbook for any organization implementing SOA."
—Dan Bertrand, Enterprise Technology Officer & EDS Fellow, EDS Corporation

"A fundamental breakthrough in the business and technology perspectives of SOA-this book belongs in every software developer, architect, and IT executive library. Marks and Bell demonstrate a creative and practical approach to building complex, service-oriented systems. I especially liked the hands-on perspective brought to multiple aspects of SOA. A must-have guide in the technology turbulence of the future."
—Ariel Aloni, Chief Technology Officer, SunGard Data Management Solutions

"This outstanding text gets straight to the heart of the matter, cutting through the hyperbole and discussing how to drive real business value through SOA. It will certainly impact my behavior, our governance models, and, subsequently, the successful business outcomes we derive as we continue to embrace SOA. A must-read for battle-scarred SOA veterans and fledgling architects alike."
—Christopher Crowhurst, Vice President and Chief Architect, Thomson Learning

"Too often, SOA has been perceived as 'all about the technology'-standards, technology stacks, operational monitoring, and the like. In this book, Marks and Bell expand beyond the technology to provide a refreshing business-driven perspective to SOA, connecting the dots between business requirements, architecture, and development and operations, and overlaying these perspectives with tried-and-true governance techniques to keep SOA initiatives on track. A must-read for those leading the charge to adopt SOA within their enterprise."
—Brent Carlson, Chief Technology Officer, LogicLibrary and coauthor of San Francisco Design Patterns: Blueprints for Business Software

"Marks and Bell have captured a wealth of practical experience and lessons learned in what has become the hottest topic in software development. In this book, they explain in detail what works and what does not, from procedural issues to technical challenges. This book is an invaluable reference for organizations seeking the benefits of SOAs."
—Dr. Jeffrey S. Poulin, System Architect, Lockheed Martin and author of Measuring Software Reuse: Principles, Practices, and Economic Models

"One of the last things companies often consider when implementing a business solution such as SOA is the impact on people. Marks and Bell provide an in-depth look at 'what has to change' from a process standpoint to make any SOA implementation a success. A great read for those considering to embark on an enterprise SOA and looking for the right mix of people, process, and products."
—Alan Himler, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, LogicLibrary

SOA is a complex topic and a complex organizational goal

Service-Oriented Architecture: A Planning and Implementation Guide for Business and Technology shows you how to plan, implement, and achieve SOA value through its prescriptive approach, joining the business and strategic perspective to the technical and architectural perspective.

Applicable to all industries, technology platforms, and operating environments, this innovative book provides you with the essential strategies to drive greater value from your SOA and realize your business goals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

Redundant, Obvious, Vacuous
The book is a decent entry point into the somewhat muddled world of SOA.I rate it a 1 star, however, because the book is heavy on marketing hype and light on details/content.I bought this book primarily because it had consistent high ratings from other reviewers, but I think it's likely that these reviewers are fake, just propping up the rating (if you look at most of the 5 star reviewers, they only rate one book - this one).

The book paints SOA as the ultimate enterprise IT panacea.The solution to all of your business problems.SOA of course can ameliorate some of the tangle of entprise architecture, but I believe, as Fred Brooks said, "there's no silver bullet".

For example, take this statement:

"Although nearly every business and IT executive for the last 30 years has wistfully dreamed of achieving business agility, there has been little real progress toward that end save for a few exceptional firms.For most organizations, business agility is a vision without reality.Until now.SOA and services provide a means to achieving true business agility."

Obviously this is massive hyperbole.There have of course been a myriad of improvements in business agility in the past 30 years, some big, some small.Take the PC, the internet, the web, oo, uml, automated testing, open source, faster hardware, etc.These have all helped businesses build software faster, cheaper, better.The problem is that complexity has out-paced us, not that SOA is filling a void of improvements.

They buttress these sweeping statements with numbers, but those too seem a bit groundless (at least I saw no footnotes to back these up).For example:

"Imagine you can launch new products and services 30% faster than your competitors because you eliminated friction within your enterprise..."

...or...

"The time to implement needed system changes to support these new products has been cut by 25%..."

Further, the book is also quite redundant and obvious.Take chapter 2 - section: "SOA is all about Services".First sentence:

"Service-oriented architecture is nothing without services."

Probably true, but it's a bit like like saying "Object Oriented Design is nothing without objects".Next sentence:

"Services are the primary asset of SOA".

Two sentences later:

"The fundamental unit of an SOA is a service."

3 sentences later:

"An SOA with services is useless unless those available services actually are consumed."

Sure, but any system is useless unless there are users or consumers.And finally, to sum up the section, they end on:

"But why are services so important to an SOA? ..."

Anyway, I'm sorry to bash this book so hard, but I felt compelled to write this review because (a) the book is pretty light on content and (b) I feel like there is some duplicity in all these positive reviews...and if that's the case, it's disappointing.

AN EXCELLENT TECHNOLOGY BOOK
This book is an excellent SOA technological introduction that presents major architectural concerns that most architects, team leads, developers, and software modelers struggle with. It addresses fundamental service-oriented challenges and provides viable solutions that IT professionals can employ:
- A service lifecycle that identifies major modeling disciplines
- Introduction to service-oriented analysis, design, and realization
- Introduction to service-oriented technologies
- A service-oriented integration model that provide viable interoperable solutions
- Service reusability model that elaborates on various methods that can facilitate asset reuse in organizations

I'd recommend this book to IT personnel and SOA practitioners that would like to learn more about starting service-oriented projects and achieving effective results.

Business Focused SOA
This book is a must read for the Executive and Architect responsible for transforming their business processes and IT infrastructure from something resembling an anchor to an agile, flexible system that enables corporate progress.This book will show you a process that will help you get off step 0, define the right services, and ensure that your SOA efforts resolve your business and IT challenges. When implementing an SOA, the technology is the easy part, ensuring that services are created in a consistent manner, that they are designed with reuse in mind, that s/w creation, and hence new product development, gets less expensive and takes less time, over time, that's the hard part, that's where SOA Governance comes in, and this book will give you the SOA Governance basics you need to get your SOA transformation off to a good start.Get control of Governance and your 75% there.This book will not provide code snippets, developer advice, or describe technical specifications, if you want these things, get Thomas Url' or Greg Lomow' books.This book is about using a top-down business service analysis, bottom-up implementation considered, iterative SOA design model. Read it to develop or improve your SOA planning capabilities.

Still Obfuscated Abomination
Amazon deleted my last negative review so I'm writing another one. This bookis nothing but middle manager buzzwards and little content. Beware all the 5 star 'real name' reviews below. Someone is stacking the deck on this one.

Not for a Developer
Note: My strong dislike of this book probably says more about me than the book...

As a developer I like books that bridge the technical and the business gap. I need to see, in concrete examples, how things might be implemented -- I want to see code, configuration documents, snippets of policy code etc. I also find it helpful when books build upon a sample application. I wanted to see examples of the technology that enables SOA, walk-thrus of standards such WSPL.

This book has none of that. To me it is a book of high-level lists of lists and every section I've read leaves me wondering what it said. I think they repeat themselves too much and the book seems poorly organized with material half way through a chapter which seemed to me to belong at the start. For all it being high-level, they make an assumption that the reader is familiar with a host of acronyms and/or the technology behind them. ... Read more

Product Description
Future computing professionals must become familiar with historical computer architectures because many of the same or similar techniques are still being used and may persist well into the future. Computer Architecture: Fundamentals and Principles of Computer Design discusses the fundamental principles of computer design and performance enhancement that have proven effective and demonstrates how current trends in architecture and implementation rely on these principles while expanding upon them or applying them in new ways.

Rather than focusing on a particular type of machine, this textbook explains concepts and techniques via examples drawn from various architectures and implementations. When necessary, the author creates simplified examples that clearly explain architectural and implementation features used across many computing platforms.

Following an introduction that discusses the difference between architecture and implementation and how they relate, the next four chapters cover the architecture of traditional, single-processor systems that are still, after 60 years, the most widely used computing machines. The final two chapters explore approaches to adopt when single-processor systems do not reach desired levels of performance or are not suited for intended applications. Topics include parallel systems, major classifications of architectures, and characteristics of unconventional systems of the past, present, and future.

This textbook provides students with a thorough grounding in what constitutes high performance and how to measure it, as well as a full familiarity in the fundamentals needed to make systems perform better. This knowledge enables them to understand and evaluate the many new systems they will encounter throughout their professional careers.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent
This was surprisingly one of if not the best written books I read during my college career. Technical books tend to be my bane as I have a hard time getting through them and staying interested enough in the material to remember anything I read. This book I actually found to be very entertaining and pulled me into the subject as I read. The book has two main strong points. The language used in the book makes the reading material easy to follow while staying interesting and the book is very easy to navigate to find what you need. Both issues can hinder a technical book. Overall well written. ... Read more

Product Description
This book takes a modern structured, layered approach to understanding computer systems. It's highly accessible - and it's been thoroughly updated to reflect today's most critical new technologies, including Pentium II and UltraSPARC microprocessors, Windows NT and Java Virtual Machines.Tanenbaum and Goodman present a computer as a series of layers, each one built upon the ones below it, and understandable as a separate entity. The book includes detailed coverage at the digital logic and micro-architecture levels, instruction set level, and operating system machine level, and contains a completely rewritten and updated chapter on parallel computer architecture. This new edition includes a wealth of new material about modern I/O devices, a detailed discussion of the Java Virtual Machine (including a microprogrammed implementation of a subset of a JVM), extensive coverage of multiprocessing, and much more.For all computer professionals and engineers who need an overview or introduction to computer architecture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (40)

Great price!
Great price for the book....I went with the 4th edition just because I didnt want to spend $100+ for the 5th edition...hardly a difference between them....

Can't understand after review it again.
This book is very vague. I found the main characteristic of Prof. Tanenbaum's book is that he likes to use abstract algebra to deliver his example. For example, in chapter 1 he talks about Languages, Levels and VM. He uses L0, L1, L2 to represent languages and M0, M1, M2 to represent virtual machine. For people already have prior knowledge of programming such as C, Java, when they read this they could easily reference to something they have already studied, but for me I still can not relate them very well. In contrast, in Randal E. Bryany & David O'Hallaron's book, the beginning of book gives out a concrete example: the C programming Language. I found the latter always work better even after took the architecture course two years later.

My point is for people who want to have clear idea of real world, you should pick another book. This book might be suitable for architecture theory(hopefully).

Book is fine
Ignore the other reviewers comments who are lazy and/or incapable of doing the end-chapter problems, it's amusing how many people repeated that(like parrots).
Some problems take more time and require compact understanding of concepts explained so far and some are easy, I used the book for an independent study course and it's readable, presenting a good deal of material, and includes quite funny comments in the text. I recommend it.

Tanenbaum needs new publisher and editors
Andrew Tanenbaum might be the best there is when it comes to the study of computers but, unless you're a "thorough geek," you'd wish other technical writers would step into the fore.

Tanenbaum's books all use the same single technique to help students remember important ideas:bold letters.That's it.You'd be hard pressed to understand the main concepts most of the times because, like a forgetful professor, he'd sometimes mention it in passing (without bold font) that you think they weren't that important.Until one pops up in one of his chapter problems, then you're through.

He does not provide any solutions at the end of his books.One gets the sense he wrote his books for the instructors/professors who are too lazy (or uncreative) to come up with their own sample problems for the students.I wish they'd write computer science books the way mathematicians write their books: They assume their students are "mathematically-challenged" so they go that extra mile to make sure the students get the point.They provide answers to odd-number problems, for one.They also make sure the layout of their books are arranged so that students don't miss the main ideas.With Tanenbaum, you'd have to dig everywhere; you don't know whether to search in the current, previous, or the following chapters for help in answering the problems.

I still have a few more semesters of computer science; I'm almost sure all the textbooks would be written by Tanenbaum (again!).I dread the thought.

So, Tanenbaum, if you're reading this:Please, please, look for another publisher and editor who would help you in the layout of your book.And please, please, provide some answers to some of your problems for the students.At over a hundred bucks, I want my money's worth!

The Book
Does any one know of a solution mannual for this book? The questions at the end of the book are nice and all but they are really hard to solve. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was the first to bring essential knowledge on embedded systems technology and techniques under a single cover.This second edition has been updated to the state-of-the-art by reworking and expanding performance analysis with more examples and exercises, and coverage of electronic systems now focuses on the latest applications.Researchers, students, and savvy professionals schooled in hardware or software design, will value Wayne Wolf's integrated engineering design approach.

The second edition gives a more comprehensive view of multiprocessors including VLIW and superscalar architectures as well as more detail about power consumption. There is also more advanced treatment of all the components of the system as well as in-depth coverage of networks, reconfigurable systems, hardware-software co-design,security, andprogram analysis. It presents an updated discussion of current industry development software including Linux and Windows CE. The new edition's case studies cover SHARC DSP with the TI C5000 and C6000 series, and real-world applications such as DVD players and cell phones.

* Uses real processors (ARM processor and TI C55x DSP) to demonstrate both technology and techniques...Shows readers how to apply principles to actual design practice.
* Covers all necessary topics with emphasis on actual design practice...Realistic introduction to the state-of-the-art for both students and practitioners.
* Stresses necessary fundamentals which can be applied to evolving technologies...helps readers gain facility to design large, complex embedded systems that actually work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Not Recommended
This book was the required text for a class or I would not have purchased it.It is poorly organized and poorly written.The author provides an annoying amount of superfluous commentary and makes unnecessary digressions, both of which obscure the points he must be trying to make, and the content is sometimes repetitious.Finally, the book contains grammatical errors and the text includes what must surely be editorial content such as "stet" and "the acronym is the name", rendering some sentences unintelligible.Most books have their faults, but this one has too many to make it a worthwhile purchase; there are better texts which cover the same material.

explains hierarchy of design, from devices to operating system
The average person in the US now uses a computer. Typically running a Microsoft operating system or unix or linux. Yet there is an entire ecosystem of embedded computers out there, invisible to most people. Wolf's text explains how you can program such computers as well as design the circuitry in which they might exist. Here, "computer" in the book essentially means microprocessor plus some off-chip memory. The book surveys two main microprocessor families - ARM and SHARC. These are not the most common microprocessors. (Which might be by Motorola.). But Wolf chooses them to illustrate different design ideals for their instruction sets.

One nice thing about the book is that you get a direct grasp of the hierarchy of design and logic. Climbing from the low level devices of latches, gates, flip-flops and the like, to the microprocessor and its machine language, to the corresponding and far easier to use assembly language. Then, upwards to an operating system.

Good intro to embedded development
Do you know what percentage of all computers run Windows or some kind of Unix? Guess. I'll give you the answer later.

This book is about all the other computers out there - the ones in your car's airbags and antilock brakes; in your watch, cellphone, TV and its remote, CD player, and computer keyboard; in your implanted defibrillator.

Wolf starts with an introduction in terms of a personal-scale, practical example. Next he goes into what a CPU is in lots more detail than most programmers ever think about - the kind of detail you need when the CPU interacts so intimately with the other components in the system. Maybe you never heard of the ARM or SHARC processors (unless you already do embedded work), but they're good representative choices. ARM is an incredibly common core architecture, with supervisor mode and memory mapping, what it takes to run a "real" OS, whether it does or not. SHARC is a signal processor - a real processor, but with extras for fast artihmetic processing. Together, the two stand adequately for a large fraction of the embedded processors in use.The next chapter goes over hardware basics: the bus, memory mapped IO, interface issues, and in-circuit debugging.

The rest of the book generally covers higher level issues: software design, embedded and real-time OSs, coprocessors, and networks. Although coverage of IIC and similar board-level communication is good, I found the ethernet discussion weak. Anyone working at this level is likely to need 802.2 protocols, which I did not see mentioned. The book's strengths far outnumber its occasional soft spots, though.

Embedded computing is a huge, many faceted field, so no book can cover more than a tiny fraction of what it means. Still, this addresses a broad, useful range what you need to program 99% of the computers out there - because only about 1% run Windows or Unix.

//wiredweird ... Read more

Product Description
Computer Aided Manufacture in Architecture is both a critical introduction and a practical guide to CAM. It argues that our understanding and exploration of CAM requires more thanknowledge of the technology involved. It also demands an awareness of its relation to existing practices of design and making. By placing CAM within the context of both traditional craft and mechanised mass production, this book shows how we can begin to 'change the craft of design'.

Callicott covers both the origins of CAM and its future applications outside of conventional manufacturing. A number of experimental projects - undertaken specifically for the research of the book - consider the strategies for future multi-disciplinary applications. Techniques explored include both the rapid prototyping of objects within the design studio and large-scale examples within the manufacturing industry using CNC machining strategies. Together they provide designers with an unprecedented opportunity to carry out complex and unique proposals within research and commercial practice.

Computer aided manufacture greatly increases the palette of tools available to designers and in so doing changes both the craft of design and the design process itself. This book explores the questions that this throws open and challenges the way in which we design today - do we succumb to pre-packaged solutions, or are we still in control of the technology we use?




*A concise, clear, 'how to do it' guide to a new and exciting area of architecture
*Allows you to explore the challenges that face architects today
*Describes techniques and outlines what value they bring to the design process ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Rapid Protptyping
I am writing a thesis on how computer aided manufacture is being integrated and redefining the design industries with particular interest in modelmaking. This book helped a great deal, giving an excellent unbiased objective from many sources. An easy to read and understand book that allows the reader to form an educated opinion. This is a relatively new technology that's here to stay, so this is a definite must for people who want to know more about it. Five stars. ... Read more

Product Description

New sequencing technologies have broken many experimental barriers to genome scale sequencing, leading to the extraction of huge quantities of sequence data. This expansion of biological databases established the need for new ways to harness and apply the astounding amount of available genomic information and convert it into substantive biological understanding.

A complilation of recent approaches from prominent researchers, Bioinformatics: High Performance Parallel Computer Architectures discusses how to take advantage of bioinformatics applications and algorithms on a variety of modern parallel architectures. Two factors continue to drive the increasing use of modern parallel computer architectures to address problems in computational biology and bioinformatics: high-throughput techniques for DNA sequencing and gene expression analysis—which have led to an exponential growth in the amount of digital biological data—and the multi- and many-core revolution within computer architecture.

Presenting key information about how to make optimal use of parallel architectures, this book:

• Describes algorithms and tools including pairwise sequence alignment, multiple sequence alignment, BLAST, motif finding, pattern matching, sequence assembly, hidden Markov models, proteomics, and evolutionary tree reconstruction
• Addresses GPGPU technology and the associated massively threaded CUDA programming model

• Reviews FPGA architecture and programming
• Presents several parallel algorithms for computing alignments on the Cell/BE architecture, including linear-space pairwise alignment, syntenic alignment, and spliced alignment
• Assesses underlying concepts and advances in orchestrating the phylogenetic likelihood function on parallel computer architectures (ranging from FPGAs upto the IBM BlueGene/L supercomputer)
• Covers several effective techniques to fully exploit the computing capability of many-core CUDA-enabled GPUs to accelerate protein sequence database searching, multiple sequence alignment, and motif finding
• Explains a parallel CUDA-based method for correcting sequencing base-pair errors in HTSR data

Because the amount of publicly available sequence data is growing faster than single processor core performance speed, modern bioinformatics tools need to take advantage of parallel computer architectures. Now that the era of the many-core processor has begun, it is expected that future mainstream processors will be parallel systems. Beneficial to anyone actively involved in research and applications, this book helps you to get the most out of these tools and create optimal HPC solutions for bioinformatics.

Product Description
Presents detailed coverage for decision-makers, software engineers, architects, and project managers alike.Coverage includes a high level overview of HLA's technical and business rationale, HLA architecture and components, including the Runtime Infrastructure (RTI) and Federation Object Model (FOM).**Materials previously included on an accompanying CD-ROM now accessible via publisher's Web site.**Amazon.com Review
As simulations become increasingly important in nearly all aspects of life, we're finding that combining existing systems is much more efficient than building newer, more complex replacements. Whether your interest is in business, the military, or entertainment or is even more general, Creating Computer Simulation Systems: An Introduction to the High Level Architecture will show you how to use the new standard for building and integrating modular simulation components and systems.

The HLA, adopted by the U.S. Department of Defense, has been years in the making and recently has shot out ahead of its competitors to grab the attention of engineers and designers worldwide. The book contains an overview of the rationale and development of the HLA; an extended, integrated tutorial that demonstrates its power and applicability to real-world problems; advanced topics and exercises; and well-thought-out programming examples.

The book's organization and design are top-notch--the chapters are nearly as modular as the systems they explore, though the meat of the book runs the reader through an extended set of problems focusing on the same model. Designed more as a guide than a reference, it is still well-indexed and a must for managers, technicians, programmers, and anyone else working on building simulations. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

OK, but not great
HLA has been around now for a long time and I think it's telling that this is the only real book on the topic.If you are working with HLA, this is a good reference, but you will still need some serious time with the documentation for whatever RTI you end up using.I suspect that some day HLA will be replaced with something better, but it doesn't seem to be coming soon.

Best book on HLA available
I think most of the negative reviews are actually against HLA and due to a lack of experience with component-based simulation system development ... not the book itself.

With the lack of resources out there, I really appreciate this resource.

I've just begun to read the book and find it very easily read.I'll post another review as I progress.

Superficial
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of the HLA by the sense of achievement you get from getting the RTI to work at all.In other words -- and this is the rock solid principal on which the whole of the DMSO's DoD-wide success is founded -- their fundamental design flaws are hidden by their superficial design flaws.This book covers in detail all of the HLA's superficial design flaws while omitting coverage of the fundamental design flaws.Thus, give it a miss.

Ok, but could be better.
This book covers a lot of the basics of what HLA is but contains holes.After reading this book three times I am still left with questions as to how to implement HLA in an application.I [...] still have unanswered questions as to how to implement the HLA.The examples in the book are implemented in Java [...] however I would have been happier if the examples were implemented in C++ as well.This is a good starting point, in the absence of alternatives, but could be better.

Recommended, so far
I am at the mid-point of the book and will likely post another review when I am done. [...] The authors give the history and motivation and design decisions behind HLA. They also give many good examples, [...], allow you to get a really good feel for the important concepts of HLA by running an actual federation. One thing I will be looking for is the impact of the architecture on simulation performance, scalability in practice (as opposed to in theory), and how is HLA likely to evolve over the next couple decades.
I don't know yet whether the book is enough for you to create your first federation. If you really have NO background at all in simulation, you will still get a lot out of the first couple of chapters, plus the many references to articles written on the subject, but don't expect to find the other chapters easy. Using my background in simulation systems, I can say that HLA seems to have been very well thought out, based on real-life simulation systems, and is therefore not trivial. But that's what makes it interesting, and the book so far lives up to that. ... Read more

Product Description
This book gives a comprehensive description of the architecture of microprocessors from simple in-order short pipeline designs to out-of-order superscalars. It discusses topics such as- the policies and mechanisms needed for out-of-order processing such as register renaming, reservation stations, and reorder buffers - optimizations for high performance such as branch predictors, instruction scheduling, and load-store speculations- design choices and enhancements to tolerate latency in the cache hierarchy of single and multiple processors- state-of-the-art multithreading and multiprocessing emphasizing single chip implementationsTopics are presented as conceptual ideas, with metrics to assess the performance impact, if appropriate, and examples of realization. The emphasis is on how things work at a black box and algorithmic level. The author also provides sufficient detail at the register transfer level so that readers can appreciate how design features enhance performance as well as complexity. ... Read more

Product Description
Deals with the functional behavior of a computer systems as viewed by a programmer.Includes aspects such as the sizes of data types and the types of operations that are supported. DLC: Computer architecture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Confusing and filled with errors
This book was the required text for a fundamental class in a graduate-level program. In general, explanations and descriptions are vague and lack the detail needed to promote learning and understanding. There are misspellings and factual errors in the text and in the diagrams, and my instructor has had to point out errors in the review questions.

I have ordered two copies of this book. The first one fell apart after 2 weeks of use. The second one made it nearly to the end of the semester before the spine disintegrated. I treat my books with great care, so I am certain that this is a quality issue with the binder.

At $107, this 553-page book is obscenely expensive. This is especially true since it fell apart and so can't be sold as used.

I give it two stars because the typography and design are reasonably good. The book is well organized, has plenty of tables and diagrams, and relevant words are highlighted in the text. This does not save it from poor writing and editing, unfortunately.

A Must book!
Though this book is not as popular as H&P, but it gives a concrete illustrate examples on how the problems can been conquerred and resolved (you can check both authors backgrounds to find out why). Any serious computer sciences orcomputer engineering majors should have this book as their standard reference book on the shelf in case anybody asking any nuts and bots questions regarding CA.

WOW!I love this book!
I you are serious about learning what actually happens inside the computer and how it works, how your C program is translated into machine code - from C -> Preprocessor -> Assembler -> Object Code and how the computer executes the object code. + a lot of hardware stuff, digital logic, binary arithmetic and more. This is THE BOOK!

You might need to read the chapters in this book a couple of times to fully understand it. But this book really helps you to understand what going on inside that beige box.

Do yourself a favor, buy this book!

Clearly written? The previous reader must have been ...
"confused", to say the least ... the book is plainly horrible, it tries to explain some simple examples and then throws a lot of difficult stuff that is barely explained or not at all ... no answers to problems ... mistakes ... i don't know what to say, but certainly not recommended for undergrad use.

Excellent source for part II of GRE Subject Computer Science
I am preparing GRE subject computer science and I needed couple of books to refresh my knowledge... Well, this one pretty well covers ALL aspects of the part II (Computer Organization and Architecture) which is 20% of the exam.

I guess the book is usefull as a textbook for undergraduate studies as well but since I did not graduated in USA, I don't really know.

So, if you don't have any similar book and you want to prepare GRE CS, this might be one of references. ... Read more

Product Description
This book deals with advanced computer architecture and parallel programming techniques. The material is suitable for use as a textbook in a one-semester graduate or senior course, offered by Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Industrial Engineering programs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This book very useful as a reference when I need to build multi-core systems
Much of this book is a dry read.Oh well, they all are.The value I find in this book is that I occasionally need to re-remember the design needs of a more complex ASIC/CPU/SoC design.Many of the issues related to these designs are often forgotten in the rush to get a design done on schedule.This book kicks my mind set back toward the principals and challenges in designing such a complex system.

It is really a very good book for Computer Science students
This is an excellent book especially for students who want to do Masters in Computer Science & Engineering. Concept of Parallel processing, multistage Unix Kernel etc. are excellent. More detailed discussion onSuperComputer Architecture with diagrams are required. ... Read more

Product Description
This history of computing focuses not on chronology (what came first and who deserves credit for it) but on the actual architectures of the first machines that made electronic computing a practical reality. The book covers computers built in the United States, Germany, England, and Japan. It makes clear that similar concepts were often pursued simultaneously and that the early researchers explored many architectures beyond the von Neumann architecture that eventually became canonical. The contributors include not only historians but also engineers and computer pioneers.An introductory chapter describes the elements of computer architecture and explains why "being first" is even less interesting for computers than for other areas of technology. The essays contain a remarkable amount of new material, even on well-known machines, and several describe reconstructions of the historic machines. These investigations are of more than simply historical interest, for architectures designed to solve specific problems in the past may suggest new approaches to similar problems in today's machines. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Great Book with a Slow Start
This book resulted from papers presented at the International Conference on the History of Computing in Paderborn, Germany, in August 1998. It is notable for containing first-hand or nearly first-hand accounts of developments in America, England and Germany in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

The first part of the book, unfortunately, could put the reader to sleep and result in even a serious student of the subject never reaching "the good stuff." But once I hit Harry Huskey's paper on page 69, I realized that I was seeing first hand reports with details not previously published. Details on both the Eniac and the IAS computer at Princeton filled a lot of gaps in my knowledge.

The parts of the book dealing with both British and German development shed a lot of light on important developments that are frequently omitted or only superficially covered in many works.

If you have some knowledge of vacuum tube electronics and early computer technology, most of the book will be easily understood.In other words, it's good for old-timers.

Highly recommended!

Absolutely excellent
This is a series of papers stitched into a book, and without exception they are all well written, provide lots of technical detail, and are a joy to read. I highly recommend this book if you have any interest in the history of computing machinery and electronics. The only thing lacking is a story line or a plot - many books will detail the genius of a specific person or technical team (e.g. Seymour Cray, or the Macintosh developers), then take you through each phase of the development and success (or failure) of one or more products. This book, by contrast, is focused on the technical nitty-gritty, and the personalities and financial success/failure of the business is generally ignored.

very technical
This book is very technical, which is exactly what I was looking for.It is filled with architectual diagrams, opcodes, and even code fragments from the earliest computers.Some of these machines even predate World War 2.

The book opens with discussions on the taxonomy of these primordial computers.This section is the weakest part of the book.External references are mentioned, when they should have been described in detail.Another typical problem is on page 8, where a family tree is printed in a micro-fiche font.

The remainder of the book is divided into sections for the US, UK, Germany, and Japan.This is the bulk of the text, and the reason why you would want to buy it.I must stress again, that the articles are extremely technical.They will be hard to follow without a background in digital design, some knowledge of system architecture, and maybe some assembly.But for those who can appreciate it, it is absolutely fascinating.

This is my favorite book that none of my friends would appreciate! ... Read more

Product Description

In the early days of computing, hardware and software systems were designed separately. Today, as multicore systems predominate, this separation is becoming impractical.

Product Description

This new primer offers readers an introduction to the fundamental concepts of computer architecture, providing a solid foundation for constructing programs that are more efficient and less prone to errors. Rather than focusing on engineering details, the guide approaches basic architectural concepts from the view of the programmer. Educates programmers on the three essential areas of architecture: processors, memories, and I/O systems, helping them to improve program efficiency by understanding the consequences of programming choices and allowing them to pinpoint sources of bugs. Emphasizes essential programming concepts such as two's-compliment arithmetic and ranges of integer values. Includes high-level topics like parallelism, pipelining, and performance. For anyone interested in learning more about computer architecture.

Customer Reviews (5)

Great Purchase
Great sale.Purchase was smooth as silk and received book in great condition and very quickly!@

Computer architecture for the non-hardware professional
I was looking for a book that would give me a better understanding of how computer hardware works, without requiring me to have taken EE courses in college.This book was exactly what I was looking for - the Computer Hardware 101 class I missed.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know at more detailed level how their computer works, and particularly recommend it to other software professionals who want to know more from a theoretical perspective.Professor Comer introduced me to TCP/IP over a decade ago, and now he's done the same thing for computer architecture - this book si both technically crisp and very readable.

Not a usual Comer book ...
I have been a big fan of Comer's networking books for a long time now. Back in 1994, beginning my career as a software engineer at a small protocol-software development company, I had used Comer's networking book to understand TCP/IP suite. (Back then Tanenbaum's 2ed book dealt with theoretical concepts rather than real-life examples.) Comer's networking book helped me get off the ground and become very productive with basic embedded IP protocol stack in a week.

Subsequently, out of admiration for such a great teacher, I have bought almost all the various books that Comer has written.

Essentials of Computer Architecture was the latest addition to the Comer-books section of my personal library. A few days back I decided to read it. And I was amazed at the bad and incoherent writing in this book. My first guess was that Comer had not even written this book. Somebody was pulling off a scam off his name. Further reading convinced me that this book is worthless and definitely not worthy of carrying Prof Comer's name on it.

The book starts with the premise that computer arch and org is a required course in all CompSci and Eng depts. Without doubt, most of the currently popular books on CompArchOrg are heavily biased towards people with electrical engineering background. But, people who would eventually be involved in developing software also need to understand how computers are organized and designed. So, apparently Comer decided to write this book focusing on "concepts" rather than details. I figured only Prof Comer could set and achieve such a lofty goal. So, I started reading the book.

The problem with the "concepts" rather than details approach starts becoming apparent from the very firt page: You cannot teach digital logic without some references to electrical and electronics concepts. The high level digital logic exposition presented in this book is bound to leave any student (reading from only this book) very, very, very ... confused about eveyrthing he/she reads in the few pages devoted to digital logic.

Secondly, you cannot talk about data representation and the importance of 2-s complement, etc without talking about how digital adders and multipliers work. "Why 2-s complement" can only be answered by students who have a good understanding of how arithmentic circuits can be built using digital logic components.

The book spirals downward from the beginning adding more and more confusing "concepts" without any proper explanation.

I think you would do yourself a lot of good just reviewing the slides on the ESA website. Those slides have about all the contents that the book has.

Finally, for real computer arch and org courses, I am sure there are much better books out there that talk about the details as well as the concepts. I feel readers of this book would come out of school completely confused about what is computer arch and org and its importance in compSciEng departments.

I would wait for a 2ed that is worthy of Prof Comer's name.

Computer architecture 97% fat free
Comer, a distinguished professor of nearly everything (Purdue University) writes another book that weaves highly technical subject matter into prose that reads like a novel. Comer has a habit of writing beautiful technical books.

Comer is famous for his masterpiece, his Internetworking with TCP/IP series. But Comer has also designed and fabricated VLSI circuits at Bell Labs, and has world class expertise in other areas. Comer knows what he's talking about and it shows.

I loved this book. I just couldn't put it down. It's one of those rare technical books that you take to bed, and you've read half the book in a day.

This book was written for computer science majors, but I'm an electrical engineering student and I really appreciated it for its broad, elegant overview of computer architecture. Comer doesn't force a thousand pages of rambling opinion pieces down your throat. Instead you get ~300 pages of just what you need, 97% fat free. Another wonderful feature of Comer's unique computer architecture text is the practical work. Comer provides a series of labs where you will wire up logic gates and build stuff. Magnificent. So if you want to stop before becoming Seymour Cray, you will like this book, too. Those who have never taken a digital logic course will breeze through and understand how computers are constructed from logic gates up, and how they work at a simplified model level.

It doesn't matter if you're in CS or EE, this book gives a breadth that you will appreciate before you dig into stuff like Verilog and VHDL for advanced digital logic and computer engineering courses. Comer has an uncanny ability to make it so clear that you'd have to make an effort not to learn anything.

This book covers hundreds of the most fundamental concepts you must learn whether this will be your only book on computer architecture or you're pursuing a course to become a degreed computer engineer. In bite-sized pieces Comer clearly and gracefully lays naked some pretty hairy stuff like clocking, feedback, arithmetic logic, microprogramming, out of order execution of instructions, virtual memory and caches, pipelining in hardware and software, input/output, and most importantly the "big picture" of modern computer systems we use today. What I found the most pleasing about this book is the precise point that interconnects between 1) enough to get a satisfying knowledge of computer architecture; 2) a real understanding of digital logic by doing it with a lab exercise; and 3) a low enough page count so that you can comfortably read it and absorb everything in a week, all without being overwhelmed or bored to death. Comer hits the spot. Bullseye.

There is just too much covered in the book for me to detail it all (check the contents), but suffice it to say that you end up with a peculiar enlightened feeling!

Just the useful education, thanks; hold the blabbering.

Comer's Computer Architecture text great for non-EE classes
I adopted Essentials of Computer Architecture for my course
because of the breadth of coverage and the hardware oriented labs. For a nominal investment in a breadboard and components, my students get hands-on experience with logic gates, directly tied to the text. Dr. Comer's Essentials of Architecture is an exceptional textbook. ... Read more

Product Description
Suitable for a one- or two-semester undergraduate or beginning graduate course in computer science and computer engineering, Computer Organization, Design, and Architecture, Fourth Edition presents the operating principles, capabilities, and limitations of digital computers to enable development of complex yet efficient systems. With 40% updated material and four new chapters, this edition takes students through a solid, up-to-date exploration of single- and multiple-processor systems, embedded architectures, and performance evaluation.

New to the Fourth Edition

Supplying appendices with relevant details of integrated circuits reprinted from vendors’ manuals, this book provides all of the necessary information to program and design a computer system. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Comprehensive and a lifesaver
I took a two-semester course on Assembly Language Programming, Digital Logic, and Computer Architecture and this book was amazing. We covered the basics of digital logic (binary, octal, and hexadecimal arithmetic, 1s and 2s complement, Boolean algebra, combinational logic, etc.) the first semester so by the time we got to this book in the second semester, we skipped the first two chapters and most of the third and went straight into adders and flip-flops.

The author discusses the organization of A Simple Computer (ASC), but given what little time we had, we were tasked with building a Very Simple Computer (VSC), a primitive 8-bit computer (5-bit memory, 3-bit opcode) capable of performing basic arithmetic. We read just the chapters on combinational circuits, synchronous sequential circuits, organization & programming, hardware design, and memory.

The point is that we only used about half the material in the book and we were able to build an 8-bit computer from TTL chips. If you read the thing cover to cover, you'd be able to build a 16- or 32-bit machine no problem. It was a ton of fun and this book was an absolute lifesaver. Together, the book and course fundamentally changed the way I look at computers and I have a much better understanding of how they operate and what's inside them. ... Read more