Customer Reviews

Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible (5th Edition)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There are two types of drivers: those who look under the hood and those who haven't yet discovered the hood catch.

The same goes for computer users. Some folk will use their computer for years in happy ignorance of its inner workings - and failings. Then there are those of us for whom ignorance and bliss never equate.

If you belong to the latter group, you'll want Winn L. Rosch's Hardware Bible at your side. For a decade, the Hardware Bible has been the definitive hardware resource for anyone wanting to understand what happens under the hood of their PC and its outlying equipment.

Surprisingly, this is not a handbook for techheads, although techheads will love it. Rosch's approachable style makes it perfect for adventurous beginners as well as intermediate and advanced computer users bent on extending their understanding of the PC's inner workings.

Rosch covers just about everything you can think of: microprocessors, motherboards, memory, busses, the BIOS, support circuitry, the power supply, input devices, the display system, monitors, audio, ports, printers, hard drives, modems, networking, and on and on.

This recently revised edition is right up to date with the latest hardware and includes a CD-ROM with diagnostic and troubleshooting software, plus a couple of megs of additional reference material thrown in for good measure.

If you want to know your LIFO from your FIFO or why your hard disk growls when it should be purring, Winn L. Rosch's Hardware Bible is for you.

In over 15 years of I work I am always looking for new material and books relating to the latest technology both hardware and software.

This is the first time I have looked at the Hardware Bible and as a Computer Technical Instructor this book has already come in handy for a couple of A+ classes I am teaching.

While the book is not written to any specific exam, I found that is would definitely help with the A+ and CST exams. The author's extensive hardware knowledge is evident throughout the book.

One thing that impressed me throughout the book was the author not only gives detailed information about the most current technology, but also gives you a firm background on older technologies as well.

While the book is the "Hardware" bible, there is far more than just hardware information, you'll also find TCP/IP and the internet, as well as memory management included in the overall coverage.

I found this to be a fairly complete text to work with. You can also register online and find both the 5th and 6th editions available. About the only thing that wasn't included was a cd with hardware utilities, but looking at what you do get this is a minor drawback. Overall this book is a certainly worth the look.

I was hoping this book would be as good as "Upgrading and Repairing PC's", but it doesn't measure up. The depth of detail on certain topics is not well balanced.

For instance, the author refers to floppy discs as necessary to modern computers as an appendix, but spends a many pages detailing it as well and it's all but obsolete relatives like the Iomega Zipdisk. Granted the zipdisk was relevant in the 1990's but it is irrelevant today. OTOH hard disc construction and it's evolution, a far more interesting and relevant topic today is not written in such deep detail.

Many dated topics pertaining to only MS-DOS need to edited down to be more concise. A detailed breakdown of all the registers in a CMOS clock chip, and all the different frequencies produced by the system timer is not needed by the average computer programmer and system builder today. It almost seems the newer the technology, the fewer the pages devoted to it.

Some information is downright wrong. The author has a limited understanding of digital video and makes many inaccurate statements regarding that topic. For all pages in the book devoted to technical minutia, I wouldn't trust it to be entirely authoritative.

Although this book is giant sized and expensive, many pages are wasted. Seperating the interesting bits of information from all the long winded filler is a chore. I would recommend browsing "Upgrading and Repairing PC's" over this book.

It's almost every thing you wanted to know and never found the answer, without lots of research, but here they are! A little lack of some drawing to help...

If you are looking for a general computing hardware book this ain't for you believe me. However if you have a general to good knowledge of computers and want to learn more about the little bits behind the big bits, you can't go past the hardware bible.
It ain't no bed time reading thats for sure (even if you could lift it- It's huge!!!). Rosch explains in great detail about everything you ever wanted to know and everything you couldn't give a stuff about which is fair enough for what he is trying to achieve. However if you have no knowledge on a given subject explained in the book its a nightmare to read.

Page after page is so stacked full of information that absorbing it all means reading everything twice, waking up, then reading it again. There are bright parts scattered throughout where Rosch lets his guard down and talks in plain English, however he is usually trying to joke about something that, after reading page after page of information which travels relitively fast above your head, makes you want to burn the book and cast its ashes out to sea wrapped in a block of concrete!
It comes with a C.D. which believe it or not "Contains 700 additional pages of coverage". Okay Mr Rosch so you have put some shareware on the C.D. and aditional diagrams and the like, good form, however its still mostly text. Remember where in the modern age of multimedia. Even a normal picture would be nice rather than the same old one cent diagrams.
Having said all that I must confess I'm talking from a "learning about computers in general" point of view and perhaps the book was not written for me....However I suppose in a couple of years the book will be a great reference tool when I understand a little more than I do now, only by then I'll be reading it so I can explaining to my children how computers used to work in the old days.

If you are going to buy an entire computer or some components read this book before, you will save time and money. The preliminary tables at the beginnings of the chapters are wonderful, concise and complete. The website of this book http://www.hardwarebible.com/ is also very good. If you have more time to read and if you have to install or repair a component, Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs is the best, in the last edition there are also movies in the CD explaining how to install and repair.

A very complete discussion of computer hardware especially on the PC side. The size of it makes it formidable, but a good reference. The price is reasonable considering the abundance of information in it.

An absolute, unconditional endorsement for this classic by Winn Rosch, a certified computer genius. This book is all substance, unlike the confused trash and filler cluttering the (real and virtual) bookshelves today from people who received an A in Freshman English and happened to end up working for a computer magazine. I am truly awed by the breadth and scope of this work. Bravo, Winn. A bonus is the CD-ROM which includes an additional 700 pages of archive and background material which did not make it into the hardcopy edition. Compare it to the throwaway shareware garbage that passes for a CD-ROM volume in most computer books today.

As a computer professional I have found the Hardware Bible an invaluable resource both as a reference work and as an aid to keeping up with the latest technologies in the ever changing computer field. Everything is explained in a straightforward and easy to understand manner, including the latest innovations such as SDRAM and AGP with just enough detail to be useful but not so deep as to be incomprehensible.

The book is geared towards people who have some basic knowledge of computers but is not too technical for a casual tinkerer. If you have a curiosity about what everything in a computer is and does then this is the perfect book for you.

okay I know a bit about general computer stuff and for me this book completely fulfilled my needs. Almost everything is covered, just not the architecture of non-intel cpu's like HP's, MIPS, Sun and DEC alpha, which I find a shame. The cdrom that comes with the book is a waste of time to say the least, ugley layout mostly text that offer no significant extra info and no index -absolutely unuseful. One of the best things about this book is the authors critical view to a lot of the technologies described, which really is needed when you are discussing pc technology. If you want coverage of just abot everything concerning pc's and don't mind the volume of data then this is definitely the book. The author could have added sort of summaries to each standard description; sometimes he describes the subject a little to extensive, and the tables are a bit technician like,a fact I suppose would-be engineers and real technicians would love. Last I must confess I only read the Premier Edition and don't know if it differs from fourth edition.(other than it's a hardback)