Product Description
An astounding glimpse into the future of physics andcomputers.

Quantum computing, the reduction of computing elements to sizes farsmaller than that of present-day chips, down to the size of individualatoms, presents new problems, problems on the quantum level. Butthanks to new discoveries by Gerard Milburn and other cutting-edgescientists, quantum computing is about to become a reality.

In this book, the first one for the general public to explain thescientific ideas behind concepts seen before only in science fiction,physicist Milburn brings us the exciting world of phenomena ofentanglement, where particles can be in two places at the same time,where matter on the quantum level can be teleported à la StarTrek's famous Transporter; and where cryptographers can constructfundamentally unbreakable computer codes.

Although other books and magazine articles have dealt with some of thesubjects in this book, this is the first book for the layman to dealspecifically with quantum computing, an area pioneered by the greatphysicist Richard Feynman, who first posed the challenge to scientiststo devise the smallest, fastest computer elements, to take us to theabsolute physical limits of computers. This book promises to bothastound and educate every reader eager to keep abreast of the latestbreakthroughs in physics and computers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

a really poor attempt
poorly written.i'm talking about the author's use of English; extremely confusing. and that's before we even get to the jargon.

A very ordinary effort
This book does not take you through quantum computing in any logical way.The author does not explain where he is going with his lengthy examples in each section. Instead he tends to launch into hard to follow, artificially concocted examples with little rationale and then move to the next topic without a conclusion or a reason for why he put the reader through such boring experience. The discussion of the Bohr - Einstein debate told me nothing of what the debate was about and there are many references to the EPR without any real explanation of what was in it. There must be a better way to understand this subject else I will have to conclude that Einstein was right and God really does play dice. Give this book a miss... it is simply not worth the effort. Even my one star is generous.

Very confusing
Mathematics was invented for a reason, and the avoidance of even simple mathematics makes this book near unintelligible. Further, the habit of versing quantum theory in terms of genetics, real and imagined, further separates the subject mater from the reader; and giving Feynman credit for how probability amplitudes add would probably not please him at all. Give this one a wide berth and read instead 'The quest for the quantum computer' by Julian Brown which is everything this book is not.

skip it
One of the most glib and inaccessible treatments of the subject I've encountered.You're much better off with something like Julian Brown's "Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse" or Feynman's own lectures on computation.

Some good material badly written, with a lot of junk
This book is clearly written by a physics professor who doesn't spend much time talking to people who haven't studied physics.I would guess his editor falls into this category as well.The back cover praises its accessibility, a marketing gimmick as obviously deceptive as the sensationalistic chapter names.For example, one chapter, "Teleportation for Gamblers" is named after an obscure quantum phenomenon that has been dubbed teleportation for no apparent reason, has nothing to do with gambling, and is only referred to in passing.

The first four chapters try to give an overview of quantum mechanics to those who haven't studied physics.Even after spending 4 years earning a Bachelor's in Physics, I was only barely able to follow the discussion.If I did not already understand the principles he was explaining, I would never have been able to fill in the holes of explanation.

But my biggest complaint about this section is that he bases the entire discussion on calculating probabilities in a quantum environment.But in trying to avoid complex math, he leaves out essential details.The much more intuitive explanation of superposition of states (whereby an object is in two places or states at the same time) he barely mentions in this section.If the material was presented in this way, all the math would be unnecessary, and the interesting second part of the book would make much more sense.

Beyond that, the book contains numerous factual mistakes.His Turing machine for multiplying on page 99 just doesn't work.On page 109, he says that if you have N objects, and for each object you need to store N pieces of information that have a total of N^N pieces of information.The correct answer, N^2, makes his point much less dramatic.

The last two chapters are interesting indeed.They discuss what is possible with a quantum computer, and the state of research in 1998.I recommend that if you do buy this book, only read the last two chapters.If you can't follow it, look anywhere else for an explanation.The first four chapters will not help. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides design methods for Digital Signal Processors and Application Specific Instruction set Processors, based on the author's extensive, industrial design experience. Top-down and bottom-up design methodologies are presented, providing valuable guidance for both students and practicing design engineers.

Coverage includes design of internal-external data types, application specific instruction sets, micro architectures, including designs for datapath and control path, as well as memory sub systems. Integration and verification of a DSP-ASIP processor are discussed and reinforced with extensive examples.

FOR INSTRUCTORS: To obtain access to the solutions manual for this title simply register on our textbook website (textbooks.elsevier.com)and request access to the Computer Science or Electronics and Electrical Engineering subject area. Once approved (usually within one business day) you will be able to access all of the instructor-only materials through the ";Instructor Manual"; link on this book's full web page.

* Instruction set design for application specific processors based on fast application profiling
* Micro architecture design methodology
* Micro architecture design details based on real examples
* Extendable architecture design protocols
* Design for efficient memory sub systems (minimizing on chip memory and cost)
* Real example designs based on extensive, industrial experiences

... Read more

Product Description
The book is as simple as possible and aimed at a non-technical audience with absolutely no knowledge of computers or electronics, but it is an electrical engineering text.A typical page consists of a circuit diagram (or program) and a paragraph or two of explanation.The book begins with a VERY simple circuit and continues to a very complex circuit (a computer) while explaining everything.Everything has been made as simple as possible while leaving nothing out.Eighty-four circuit diagrams and some timing diagrams and short programs make every point clear.

Computers are the most complex machines that have ever been created.This is the first book to make it possible for ordinary people to understand precisely how the processor, the main and most complex part of a computer, works.In fact, it completely explains the operation of a complete, though simple, computer.

Relays, which are explained, are used in the circuitry instead of transistors for simplicity, though transistors are mentioned.

Did you ever wonder what a bit, a latch, a word (of memory), a data bus, an address bus, a memory, a register, a processor, a timing diagram, a clock (of a processor), an instruction, or machine code is?Though most explanations of how computers work are a lot of analogies or require a background in electrical engineering, this book will tell you precisely what each of them is and how each of them works without requiring any previous knowledge of computers or electronics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

More technical than I thought...
This book is more technical than I expected. I'm not sure exactly what I thought the book would be like, but after thumbing through it the first time, I discovered it literally is about "How a Computer Works." It has detailed diagrams which are very helpful, and very good explanations of the terms, etc.I have found that using my computer dictionary, and definitely a regular dictionary, make anything that is a little confusing much clearer. Don't get this book if you just want something that explains how a computer works from plugging it in - to printing. But if you want a technical explanation of circuitry, etc, and how it all powers the different parts of the computer, you'll appreciate the illustrations most. And I'd say a little previous knowledge of electrical systems makes working with the book easier. DEFINITELY GO THROUGH THE BOOK STARTING AT THE BEGINNING, THROUGH TO THE END!

A Fifteen year old learning computers!
I'm a fifteen year old high school student and I have recentlypurchased this book. This was by far the best five dollars I have ever spent; the knowledge I have gained about computers is unimaginable.

Who this book is for:
-Person(s) of any age wanting to require knowledge about how computers really work
-Anyone who has been interested in electronics
-Hobbyists of electronics who create and mod projects on a daily basis

Who this book is for not:
-Person(s) not wanting to invest time into learning about what is dominating past, current, and future decades

As a fifteen year old I haven't been through most high school science classes, nor math classes and this books was very understandable to me. The book starts out as a simple Light circuit with a battery and light bulb and through pages gains complexity and different circuits. The book also explains simple programing and how a computer would use these circuits to store, erase, and read data.The two main parts of a computer this books is revolved around is the processor and the main memory; it fully explains both to its fullest potential and how each use each other to create programs. The final result leaves you with how memory works, and how a processor functions with that memory. It also leaves you with knowing how binary and simple programs work by using the processor and memory.

All in all, its a marvelous read.

It's THE BOOK to understand how computers work...
... and maybe construct a simple one!
I simply just not understand the negative reviews this book has had. It is just WONDERFUL! It starts with a very simple circuit, and go on adding ideas, one step at time, building a computer from its inner parts! Of course, some parts are more difficult than others, but just give it a second and third read...
This is the book I have been searching, as a computer science teacher, to create more interesting material to my students.

Only book of its kind
I cannot understand why some reviewers gave this book a low rating unless they did not take time to really read it and think. The book requires you to think so make sure you are prepared to do that. I found that when I read it a second time it really clicked.

I always wondered how the core of a computer really works. I know how to program, but what actually happens in the circuitry? How does it work? If you want to know this, this is the only book I have ever found which actually explains it. "Pattern on the Stone" is good for concepts, but this book is far more explicit and puts it all together. I dare you to find a better explanation anywhere for how a processor actually works as comprehensive and simple as this.

Terrible Book
Maybe I missed something two of the other reviewers didn't, but for me this book is plain awful. The diagrams look as though they have been freehand drawn, nothing seems to be clearly explained, in short I can't comprehend anything from this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Assuming no knowledge of industry jargon, this book describes the design of network systems such as routers, bridges, switches, firewalls, and other equipment used in the Internet. It considers the functionality required for protocol processing, and explains how the functionality has been implemented on a range of hardware architectures. The author focuses on network processor technology, a recent development that has become one of the standard tools used by designers. This book explores network processors and surveys network processor architectures, explains design complexity, covers architectural approaches and gives examples of commercial network processors that follow each approach, and uses the Intel IXP 2xxx series of network processors as a detailed example. For network and web designers, implementers, and administrators, and for anyone interested in how the Internet works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

the software on CD has problem
this book is a good book, but the software CD is a garbage.
as it said it should include the ixa software sdk kit, but inside, there is only a firmware kit, and can't be installed at all, it requires the software sdk kit 4.1.
what a hell! So I have to rate it 3.

promising designs
In this book, Comer specialises to the design of network processor chips. He explains why these have arisen in importance in recent years, due to ever increasing network traffic, and the need to process this as quickly as possible.

The chips described in the text are RISC designs, and fall between CISCs and ASICs, in terms of cost and other metrics. ASIC designs for network processing tend to take too long (2 years!) to design. The RISC network processors can be as fast as ASICs. They have a minimal set of instructions, that are capable of handling various protocols very quickly.

The text covers many aspects of the design. Like scaling issues of bandwidth. This can be increased, for accessing memory that is off-chip. But a cost is the increased interconnect area needed on the processor chip. The text also mentions the ironic point that unlike general purpose CPUs, increasing the cache has little benefit here. A cache is best suited when given data is repeatedly looked up by the CPU. But a network processor often just analyses a packet and pushes it out. The heavier the network traffic, the greater the chance that packets come and go everywhere on the network. So even less use for a cache.

Comer gives considerable detail in the case study of the Intel network processor. Useful for you to glean how Intel implemented many of the ideas in the text.

All the chapters are reasonably short. Each could be envisaged as mapping to one or two lectures. Something to consider if you are a lecturer needing a text on this subject. ... Read more

Product Description

Multi-core processors are no longer the future of computing-they are the present day reality. A typical mass-produced CPU features multiple processor cores, while a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) may have hundreds or even thousands of cores. With the rise of multi-core architectures has come the need to teach advanced programmers a new and essential skill: how to program massively parallel processors.

Customer Reviews (11)

Introductory book
i bought this book because i was short on time, i needed to learn CUDA quickly and efficiently, and on that the book delivered perfectly, but now after some experience with CUDA i can see that this book has nothing that u cant get online for free, if u are an experienced programmer and want to get into CUDA and GPU Programming, u dont need this book u just need some time and web tutorials, if u r a novice programmer in general then this book is for you, as it has some chapters on scientific thinking and parallelism in general which are important basis. the openCL chapters helped me a lot though it has some conflicts with the current releases so u ll need to look online a bit as well to get things working.
im giving it 3 stars because of its quality,its well written,it gets to the point and will give u wat u want, i took one star out because it gave nothing special or nothing more than what u can get online, and another star out because it is hugely overpriced.

An excellent guide to learn CUDA
This is all you need to start learning CUDA, includes good exercises and online material.

A must-have book.

No Kindle edition!
It makes me sad when I see a good book on computer science like this, that I want to read, and it's not available electronically at a decent price. My heart sinks at the thought of having to order a package several kilos heavy to wend it's way around the globe on all sorts of diesel vehicles until it is delivered to me weeks later. I have thought about ordering this book several times only to give up because it just seems wrong to buy something so old fashioned as a book any more. Why can't I just get it downloaded now? Author gets the royalty into their account, Amazon doesn't have to ship, I make my deadline for the paper I'm giving and we're all happy. Please, David, get this one into Kindle ASAP!
.

Great introduction to CUDA
A great introduction to programming GPUs using CUDA. The writing is concise and easy to read and understand. Most programmer should be able to read this book in a couple of days.

a little odd but good enough for first pass
This book is a much better introduction to programming GPUs via CUDA than CUDA manual, or some presentation floating on the web. It is a little odd in coverage and language. You can tell it is written by two people with different command of English as well as passion. One co-author seems to be trying very hard to be colorful and looking for idiot-proof analogies but is prone to repetition. The other co-author sounds like a dry marketing droid sometimes. There are some mistakes in the codes in the book, but not too many since they don't dwell too long on code listings. In terms of coverage, I wish they'd cover texture memories, profiling tools, examples beyond simple matrix multiplication, and advice on computational thinking for codes with random access patterns. Chapters 6, 8, 9, and 10 are worth reading several times as they are full of practical tricks to use to trade one performance limiter for another in the quest for higher performance. ... Read more

Product Description
Presents a comprehensive treatment of the basic principles of Multiscalar execution, and advanced techniques for implementing the Multiscalar concepts. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (8)

excellent reference
First I should say that I HATE Word.So does Word annoy me?Obviously.However, I'm forced to use Word at work and am struggling with it each and every day and swearing at MS.I thought this book would help and it does.It's a very well written book that is easy to understand.The author is an expert in Word simply from having to use it for years and has figured it all out himself.Instead of being the typical manual that says do this/do that, the author has written it almost in the style of a FAQ, but in organized sections to make it easier to find answers.The author uses some amount of humour - statements like: will Word do that? No, get over it.Would I say that this book solved all my annoyances? No.But it certainly reduced the number of them.If you are completely annoyed with Word, switch to a different program.If you have to use Word, buy this book, it's worth every penny.

Word Annoyances - Writers, Get This Book!
If you've ever said-even under your breath-"I hate Word," you'll like this book.

The book has answers for dozens of the little aggravations that Word visits upon you. It solves things you thought you just had to live with (though you knew you'd never forgive the programmers at Microsoft who made them this way).

The author writes in an engaging question- ("The Annoyance" by you) and-answer ("The Fix" by him) style that's friendly and yet precise. I would have liked it to be a bit less wordy, but it's okay because the directions are very clear and even, in many cases, contain version-specific instructions for Word 2000, 2003, XP and so on. He also sprinkles the text with occasional helpful tips in little text boxes.

Lots of documents you open frequently? The author shows you how to add a Work menu that will keep up to 9 documents readily available (p. 16). Hate it when Word won't let you put a .jpg or .gif in a document? You can change an option in the Office Setup Wizard. Want to unclutter your menus? Learn how to customize which commands show up.

Boy, this one really annoys me-how about you? Sometimes when I close Word, it asks me if I want to save the changes to Normal.dot. Now, I happen to know that Normal.dot is the default template for new documents. But I don't remember making changes to it! Why is this happening?
To kill this seemingly random prompt, choose Tools -> Options, click Save tab and uncheck "Prompt to save Normal template" box (pp. 9, 14). But it might still happen to you for other reasons-the only solution they say is to quit Word and restart Windows. Sigh.
That #$%^&@# Task Pane

This one I was paying my tech guru to fix for me-but he couldn't find the "next step." I gave up worrying about it but continued wasting time (and putting extra stress on my mouse hand) having to manually close the "new document" task pane that pops up-and stays up-on my screen, hogging valuable screen space. We'd both found the place to supposedly turn this off (Tools -> Options, click the View tab, uncheck the Startup Task Pane box in the Show area, click OK) but, as the author says, it just wouldn't obey! So I'm going to give you this whole fix in case that stupid pane annoys you, too.
If the task pane doesn't obey on your first effort, close Word and create a system restore point. Don't be afraid-this isn't as scary as it sounds. Choose Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore, click the "Create a restore point" option, click the Next button and follow the prompts.Next, choose Start -> Run, type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
Navigate to the following Registry key:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\General (in some versions it may read "...\Office\10.0\..."). Then, right-click the DoNotDismissFileNewTaskPane key, choose Delete from the shortcut menu and click OK to confirm.Choose File -> Exit to close the Registry Editor. Restart Word and you're done. This works like a charm, and I'm thoroughly delighted.

Template magic

Here's a really good tip if your work involves creating many documents of certain basic types, or if you work with others who have to create documents for you that use specific styles. Too bad I didn't read this one before that last big project-I spent hours manually correcting all the headings and fonts in the other writers' drafts because they didn't know how to use styles!

To create a template for each type of document you need, choose File -> New and in that task pane on the right that we mentioned earlier, click either "On my computer" (Word 2003) or "General templates" (Word XP). Up comes the Templates dialog box. (In Word 2000, choose File -> New to get there.)

Highlight an existing template, click Template at the bottom, and click OK.Save the .dot file with a name you'll remember. Then lay out and format the document (fonts, headings, etc.) as you want all final documents to appear. You can even enter text that you want to have in all documents based on this template.

You can create AutoText and AutoCorrect entries for boilerplate text (your company info, etc.) that doesn't specifically belong in any template. Save the changes to the template and then close it. To create a new document based on the template, open the Templates or New dialog box, select the template and click OK.

To create a template from an existing document, choose File -> Save As, select Document Template in the "Save as type" drop-down list, specify the name and click the Save button.Templates and documents look pretty much the same except for the file extension.
File gigantic?

Ever had your file be too big to send by email-even after you've deleted everything but a paragraph? That's enough to make you crazy. The author goes into a long-drawn-out explanation of why this happens-get the book if you want to read it. Otherwise, just turn off the culprit (fast saving). Choose Tools -> Options, click the Save tab and uncheck the "Allow fast saves" box.

Got a bunch of documents open and want to save them all? Shift-click the File menu and click Save All.Then, to close them shift-click File and click Close All. Easier yet (as you may already have discovered from having to shut down because Word just hangs there), just close Word and it saves and closes all your documents for you.

Home document security

Ever notice in Windows Explorer that someone else originated one of your documents? Maybe you asked your friend to help you draft something. If you want to be sure the other person's name doesn't appear when you move your cursor over that document in Explorer, remove the personal data (metadata) from the document.

Choose File -> Properties and manually delete what you want. In Word 2003/XP, choose Tools -> Options, click the Security tab and check the "Remove personal information from file properties on save" box. Then, save the document to preserve your changes.
HTML malfunctions

Writing HTML pages in Word? First piece of advice, don't-if you can help it. Word's HTML code is so wordy and clunky that your page will take longer to load and, heaven help you if you want to make changes outside Word. You'll be trying to change a font and end up with some of the strangest behaviors.

If you must use Word for HTML, save as "Web Page, Filtered" for pages you want to put on your web site. That cuts out a small amount of the messy code, but not much.
Potpourri of pleasantries

Want to stop those ridiculous "Shall we report this error to Microsoft" prompts? Who crammed all that useless code in there anyway? Just turn it off. You'll find out how on p. 30.

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm pasting from the web the formatting is way off, even if I should accidentally remember to use Paste Special. The author tells us how to fix this-sort of. Choosing Edit -> Paste Special and selecting the "Unformatted text" option should give you plain text. If not, paste the text into Notepad first, then copy it and paste it into Word.

Ever get something someone copied from an email and it's full of spaces or >> signs at the beginning of each paragraph with a first-line indent? I knew this, but it's a good tip to share with you in case you don't.

Use Find and Replace. In a later fix he tells you all the symbols to indicate formatting in this dialog box. Replace ^p (paragraph mark) and four spaces with ^p and a distinctive string - for example, ^pfirstlineindent.Then replace firstlineindent with nothing but the paragraph formatting that you need: delete the contents of the "Replace with" box, choose Paragraph in the Format drop-down list, specify the indentation level, click OK and click Replace All.(Alternatively, once you've deleted the whitespace, you can use a style to apply a first-line indent to all of the paragraphs.
Learn how to reformat WordPerfect documents on pp. 32, 78.

Here's a big question for most of us I bet: How do I correct automatic numbering in numbered lists? You know you're not going to be happy with the answer when a guy starts his response with "Bad news" and it's four pages long (pp. 80 to 84).

Do you ever get aggravated that when you're selecting text with the mouse, it keeps grabbingmore than you want? The author says this is Word's smart-selection feature.

Choose Tools -> Options, click the Edit tab and see whether "When selecting, automatically select entire word" and "Use smart paragraph selection" boxes are checked.If so, try unchecking them and see if you prefer the resulting selection behavior.
Do you have to count your words sometimes? I like this one: Instead of using Tools -> Word Count each time, do this: Display the Word Count toolbar; go to View -> Toolbars or right-click any displayed toolbar and click the Word Count item. To force a recount, press Alt + C or click the Recount button.

Sometimes have to type web or email addresses and don't want the auto-hyperlink? Read all about it on p. 94.

I've never been good at using Compare and Merge Documents-like when someone else has made changes and you want to see where they are. Here's a cool tip for comparing multiple versions:

Open the original version and choose Tools -> Compare and Merge Documents.In the Compare and Merge Documents dialog box, select the first of the other versions of the document, click the drop-down arrow on the Merge button, and choose "Merge into Current Document."Word merges the documents and marks the changes with revision marks.If the results look okay, repeat the procedure with the next version, etc.
Hate how Word's columns act when you need to change the width of one of them? Try clicking Shift as you drag it. This makes Word keep the columns to the right the same, but it does mean that your table's overall width will change.

How do I convert a long list of names or other data that are separated with regular old spaces instead of tabs? He says it's easy.

Choose Edit -> Replace and replace ^w (whitespace) with ^t (a tab).Select the list, choose Table -> Convert -> Text to Table, make sure the Tabs option is selected and that the "Number of columns" box shows the right number of columns, and click the OK button to perform the conversion.
All told, I'd say get this book if you experience periodic aggravations with Word. Don't try to go through the whole thing. The index is pretty good, so just keep it next to your computer.

Word works when you know how to fix it
When it comes to word processing programs Word is so predominant in the marketplace as to be ubiquitous.Unfortunately just because it is everywhere doesn't mean that there are not a lot of problems with it.Learning how to deal with all those annoying problems is the purpose of this book.The author covers installation problems, dealing with multiple versions, moving Word to another computer, dealing with long startup times, when it runs slowly, when it takes a long time to close, modifying the toolbar, saving all open documents at once, keeping separate versions of the same document, dealing with crashes and document corruption, transferring your auto-correct entries to another computer, the myriad problems of working with styles and layouts, printing problems (and there are many of these), mail merge, and even dealing with problems specific to the Mac OS.

Written in a question and answer format it contains all the most commonly asked questions about how to get Word to work the way you want.I've worked with Word for years and still found a couple of tips in this book that I really appreciated.If you use Word for anything other than an expanded notepad you will want a copy of Word Annoyances.

Word Annoyances
This book is a guide to making Word work your way. Users are advised on how to get rid of Word's greatest annoyances, such creating hyperlinks the user doesn't want, and how to turn off automatic paragraph numbering, among others. It provides solutions to common and unusual problems in editing, formatting, printing, faxing, and scanning. There are hundreds of customizations, fixes, workarounds, and instructions which show you how to make Word work your way. You can save a lot of time by using the advice in this book.

So *that's* how you fix that!
Because I spend most of my time programming and not writing reports and such in Word, I just figure that certain quirks of Word existed because I was too dumb to know better.While that may still be the case, I now have a way to make my Word time more productive and less annoying...Word Annoyances by Guy Hart-Davis.This is a *really* good book for anyone who uses Word (although Microsoft may tend to disagree)...

Contents:Installation, Repair, and Configuration; Creating and Saving Documents; Text Entry and Editing; Formatting and Layout; Forms, Revising, Proofing, and Finalizing; Printing, Faxing, and Scanning; Tables, Columns, and Text Boxes; Automate Annoyances Away with Macros; OLE, Mail Merge, and Office Applications; Mac Word Annoyances; Index

If you've never had the pleasure of reading an Annoyances book before, here's how it works.The author gathers up a large number of questions and "annoyances" from regular users of the product.Then in an irreverent question and answer format, he (or she) proceeds to show solutions and workarounds to allow the reader to bypass those irritations.Since this book deals with Word, you'll learn all sorts of interesting stuff on how to "fix" auto-formatting, how to change your default template, and dozens of other gems that will quickly make this one of your favorite Office books (much to Microsoft's chagrin).I'm sure they'd like you to believe that their software doesn't have any annoying features, and that everything is very helpful and well-implemented.Not!Even things that I didn't give a second thought to before now stand out as things I don't have to live with.

Obviously, not every tip in this book will apply to your needs or situations.You'll either never use a particular feature, or you've already figured out how to fix the behavior.But there are far more instances where you'll say "so *that's* how you get rid of that!".So get a copy of this book, sit down in front of your computer, open up Word, and start reading.The "Eureka!" moments will start coming fast and furious... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Indispensable Assembly Language Reference
Would that more programming reference books were as useful, well-written and engaging as this one, even on a subject as "dry" as the assembly language directives for the Intel 80386/486 family of CPUs.

I'm replacing my lost copy of this reference even though I rarely use it anymore, just because it is such an indispensable reference!

the greatest low-level reference available on 8088-80486
I think this is the best book ever published about programming the Intel x86/x87 family processors up to 80486.I would love to have an extended version coveringPentium, too. ... Read more

Product Description

A comprehensive guide to applications development with the industry-leading Motorola DSP56002 digital signal processor, and its accompanying development tools.Introduces the operation of the DSP56002 digital signal processor, the DSP56000EVM Evaluation Module, and the DSP Assembler software. Explains the DSP56002's processor architecture, addressing modes and instruction set. Presents real-time digital signal processing routines and demonstrates their implementation.This book is intended for working engineers, engineering management, and students of electronic design using CAD systems.

Product Description
High Performance Scientific And Engineering Computing: Hardware/Software Support contains selected chapters on hardware/software support for high performance scientific and engineering computing from prestigious workshops in the fields such as PACT-SHPSEC, IPDPS-PDSECA and ICPP-HPSECA. This edited volume is basically divided into six main sections which include invited material from prominent researchers around the world. We believe all of these contributed chapters and topics not only provide novel ideas, new results and state-of-the-art techniques in this field, but also stimulate the future research activities in the area of high performance computing for science and engineering applications.
High Performance Scientific And Engineering Computing: Hardware/Software Support is designed for a professional audience, composed of researchers and practitioners in industry. This book is also suitable as a secondary text for graduate-level students in computer science and engineering. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Chip designers, managers, programmers, investors: READ THIS
Chris Rowen, CEO of Tensilica, has an exceptionally broad history of successful experience in VLSI chip design, verification, software, systems design, multiprocessor applications, and EDA tools.This book draws on the integration of those experiences to build an exciting new approach to designing high-performance, low-cost, low-power chips and concurrently, well-tuned software.

Investors and managers should read Chapters 1,2,3 which analyze the trends and issues in System-on-Chip design, and motivate the use of a new approach that combines extensible processors with powerful software to create software and hardware in parallel, faster, and with less engineering effort. They should also read Chapter 8, which makes insightful prognostications about a future in which many chips will have hundreds of CPUs, or more.

If those Chapters describe What's Happening, and Why We Must Change, Chapters 4-7 explore How to Do It, and should be read by both hardware and software engineers who build embedded systems.The real-world examples (from Tensilica) and advice offer strong support that this approach actually works.

Although it certainly promotes the Tensilica viewpoint, it is well-motivated, well-referenced to the last 20 years of computing research, and has good comparisons with other approaches, i.e., it is not just a commerical sales-pitch.The book is clearly written (modulo a few typos), and can be used by readers of varying depth of experience and knowledge.

Computers have improved drastically in the last two decades, but we humans have not improved in speed or memory, and we are limited in the number of things we can really grasp at once.Real computing breakthroughs happen when people invent cost-effective ways to raise the level of abstraction, so that our brains can ignore low-level details and focus on larger issues.

Increasing CPU performance enabled people to shift some work from assembly code, to higher-level languages like FORTRAN or C, to early scripting languages [like UNIX's shell and awk], and then to even higher-level languages like TCL, Perl, PHP, Python, etc.These have enabled large numbers of people to build their own Web-based applications. It is simply unimaginable that we'd have all those applications if people had nothing but assembler and C.

I think this book describes a similar kind of breakthrough, which drastically raises the level of abstraction in concurrent hardware/software design, to take advantage of the huge nubmers of transistors now available at low cost.This doesn't mean that other design approaches will disappear (just as C hasn't gone away), but I do believe the approach described here will find increasingly wide usage, and it will certainly change the landscape.Chris is an old colleage from MIPS and SGI, and I always appreciated his insights, and this book integrates them into a very useful whole. ... Read more

Product Description

Today more than 90% of all programmable processors are employed in embedded systems. The LISA processor design platform presented in this book addresses recent design challenges and results in highly satisfactory solutions, covering all major high-level phases of embedded processor design.

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The design, operation, and technical strategy of the Pentium--both the how and the why. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Book That Explains The New Features in The Pentium CPU
The most useful information that I found in this book is the clear explanation of the new features of Pentium processor that are not found in earlier 8086 to 80486 processors. Several chapters are dedicated to the Pentium Data and Instruction Cache Memory Architecture for both system with single and multiple processors. Note that this book is not for a beginner. If you don't know anything about Cache Memory architecture from earlier Intel CPU then this book is not for you. The earlier books in Mindshare PC System Architecture Series which are ISA System Architecture, EISA System Architecture and 80486 System Architecture should give sufficent background to read this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Media processing applications, such as three-dimensionalgraphics, video compression, and image processing, currently demand10-100 billion operations per second of sustained computation.Fortunately, hundreds of arithmetic units can easily fit on a modestlysized 1cm2 chip in modern VLSI.The challenge is to provide thesearithmetic units with enough data to enable them to meet thecomputation demands of media processing applications.Conventionalstorage hierarchies, which frequently include caches, are unable tobridge the data bandwidth gap between modern DRAM and tens to hundredsof arithmetic units.A data bandwidth hierarchy, however, can bridgethis gap by scaling the provided bandwidth across the levels of thestorage hierarchy. The stream programming model enables media processing applications toexploit a data bandwidth hierarchy effectively.Media processingapplications can naturally be expressed as a sequence of computationkernels that operate on data streams.This programming model exposesthe locality and concurrency inherent in these applications andenables them to be mapped efficiently to the data bandwidth hierarchy.Stream programs are able to utilize inexperience local data bandwidthwhen possible and consume expensive global data bandwidth only whennecessary. Stream Processor Architecture presents the architecture of theImagine streaming media processor, which delivers a peak performanceof 20 billion floating-point operations per second.Imagineefficiently supports 48 arithmetic units with a three-tiered databandwidth hierarchy.At the base of the hierarchy, the streamingmemory system employs memory access scheduling to maximize thesustained bandwidth of external DRAM.At the center of the hierarchy,the global stream register file enables streams of data to berecirculated directly from one computation kernel to the next withoutreturning data to memory.Finally, local distributed register filesthat directly feed the arithmetic units enable temporary data to bestored locally so that it does not need to consume costly globalregister bandwidth.The bandwidth hierarchy enables Imagine toachieve up to 96% of the performance of a stream processor withinfinite bandwidth from memory and the global register file. ... Read more

Product Description
Presents the latest developments in the programming and design of programmable digital signal processors with very-long-instruction word architecture, and modern applications for multimedia processing, communications, and industrial control. ... Read more

Product Description
This textbook introduces the reader to assembly languageprogramming and its role in computer programming and design. Theauthor concentrates on covering the 8086 family of processors up toand including the Pentium. The focus is on providing students with afirm grasp of the main features of assembly programming, and how itcan be used to improve a computer's performance. All of the mainfeatures are covered in depth: stacks, addressing modes, arithmetic,selection and iteration, and bit manipulation; and amongst theadvanced topics covered are: string processing, macros, interrupts andinput/output handling, and interfacing with higher-level languagessuch as C. A particular strength is the discussion of the improvementsin performance that can be achieved using assembly programming whereappropriate. The book is based on several years of a successful courseoffered by the author and includes numerous hands-on exercises forstudents to undertake. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Easy to Learn Assembly Programming
I found this book easy to read and learned a great deal from it.My background is a C/C++ programmer, who needs to do a little assembly programming at times.This is the best book I have found.My search was not exhaustive, but I did read chapters from a half-dozen other books and found them unacceptable.On the downside, there are more grammatical errors than the average programming book has, but this did not detract from its ability to teach the subject.There is also some repetition, but I found this helpful because it presented the more complex topics from a different angle and reinforced what I was trying to learn.Overall, I was very impressed with the clear and thorough explanations.

Free assembler
I am the author of the book. The book's home page has detailed instructions to download free Microsoft assembler (MASM). You can also download the source code of all the programs used in the book. Forinstructors and students, viewgraph slides are available for all thechapters.

Good for undergraduate courses
This book can be a good choice for Computer Architecture introductory courses using IA32 as ISA reference. It can be useful for students as a general reference. However, complementary classic texts are also needed tocover a course, because the text of Dandamudi refers only to IA32, lacks adesiderable formal approach, and covers poorly (or does not cover) sometypical issues (floating-point, DMA).

Readers beware!
Good introductory books on assembly language are hard to come by, especially for the Intel platform. This is an attempt to fill the gap, and looking through the topics covered, it looks promising. Unfortunately, thelanguage is so poor that the book is virtually unreadable. Almost everypiece of information is repeated 2 or 3 times, sometimes resulting in analmost comical effect.

So, better luck with another book... ... Read more