Computer System Architecture (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "The digital computer is a digital system that performs various computational tasks..." (more)
Key Phrases: control address register, logic shift unit, status bit conditions, Englewood Cliffs, New York, Prentice Hall (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Focused primarily on hardware design and organization - and the impact of software on the architecture - this volume first covers the basic organization, design, and programming of a simple digital computer, then explores the separate functional units in detail. FEATURES: *develops an elementary computer to demonstrate by example the organization and design of digital computers. *uses a simple register transfer language to specify various computer operations.

From the Publisher

Focused primarily on hardware design and organization -- and the impact of software on the architecture -- this volume first covers the basic organization, design, and programming of a simple digital computer, then explores the separate functional units in detail.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 524 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 3 edition (October 29, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131755633
• ISBN-13: 978-0131755635
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #102,579 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Caution! This book could hurt your academic career, March 16, 2000

By A Customer

As a student with an perfect record (GPA:4.0)with but a single class to go until graduation, I felt so uncomfortable with this text that I dropped the course. The meandering and lack of technical elaboration was frustrating and confusing. I felt it a shame that any University would approve such garbage. It is enough to make one curious about whether money is being exchanged under the table between the book publishers and schools.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book to learn about the innards of a CPU, October 11, 2003

By A Customer

It's hard for me to believe this book didn't get good reviews. It's an awesome book that succintly details the design of a CPU. The author uses a hands on approach by showing you how to design a simple CPU from scratch. Even though simple, this CPU has a useable set of instructions (including IO ones), interrupts, and a memory subsytem. RTL is used to convey what is done at each instruction cyle, which is great. For me, this is the first time
I see a practical application of RTL. The book could have been more interesting if it provides an implementation in VHDL, or Verilog, but i guess that's left as an excercise for the reader.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very labored writing, too few completely worked out examples, April 9, 1999

By A Customer

I refer to the latest edition of this text by Mano and Kime. I tried to teach Comp. Architecture to a senior level BS class (in CS) from this book. The problem is that this book attempts to do too much and it wanders all over the subject area, leaving the students lost since they just cannot grasp the "big picture". This book gets progressively worse with every new edition! I had to extensively edit the contents to prepare lecture notes which could be comprehended. Halfway through the semester, when I came to the part on "microprogrammed control", I gave up and switched to Tanenbaum (Structured Comp Organization) instead. I would appreciate it if anyone could tell me about a better book on this subject. All the ones that I have looked at seem to be terrible in one way or another.