Customer Reviews

New Perspectives on Computer Concepts, 10th Edition, Comprehensive (New Perspectives Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The authors do an excellent job of laying out basic computer concepts in easy format. Would recommend it. The other books on special software was not explaining the basics to me. I guess I expected too much.

Catfish

I found this book to be a preety good introduction to Computer Science. (although its preety obvious the writers didnt know a whole lot about certain avenues of technology)...

Overall to a beginer it was a good well written book that you can actually learn from without the aid of lecture.

Book was stated to not have any markings, but all end of chapter review answers are filled in with pencil.

The textbook itself is interesting. I didn't realize how little I knew about technology until I started reading this.

good delivery... hard book to understand... has comp program that makes it a bit easier to understand

This book arrived in the condition as described: still in shrinkwrap, with the cd, and totally new. I had to buy it for my school. It puts me to sleep when I start to read it, but I have no interest in computer details. I know how to use it and that's enough for me. But it is a great read for someone who is really interested in computers.

I needed this textbook for one of the computer courses I was taking at my school, and didn't want to pay it's full price at the book store on my campus. Thankfully through this seller I found the very book I needed at a great price. As for the content of the book, its simple and easy to understand. Nothing remotely difficult to comprehend, it is a book designed for those that aren't computer savvy or have any knowledge before hand. (Like I said I needed for a course, but I am in no way new to computers, in fact I'm quite the opposite) That said, it's a good buy and I will likely buy from the same seller in the future if I find great deals on textbooks that I need to acquire for school.

Why would I rate this product only 1 star if I haven't bought it, or bothered reading it?

Well, because the general description indicates it has some relevance to Apple II users.

I am trying to locate a highly detailed discussion of the implementation of Floating Point math (in assembly language, or better yet, machine language), and typed "Atari 800 Floating Point" into the search engine here at Amazon, and the database Amazon relies on, spat out this book, heaven knows why.

But on skimming through all the reviews that are currently available at Amazon, not a single reviewer mentioned how well this book discusses floating point in terms of assembly language source code for the Atari 800. Yes, I am already familiar with floating point for the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 (it just so happens to be 5 byte floating point for both of those computers), and, yes, all of those computers execute 6502 compatible object code. They both rely on 6502 microprocessors. (The Commodore 64 uses a 6510, and the Commodore 128 an 8502 or 8510.) But the *implementation* of floating point on the Atari platform as opposed to the Commodore? That is a whole 'nother matter. Atari's is bound to be wildly different from the Commodore's. For one thing, I heard that the Atari used a 3 byte mantissa and 1 byte exponent; the Commodore uses a 4 byte mantissa and 1 byte exponent. Fine, I don't have an axe to grind here, I am just trying to rescue some databases, or make it feasible for others to do so. But where is the Atari sign bit? Is it in the exponent or the mantissa? Would it be the highest bit or the lowest bit?