Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)

"Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface" is the ultimate guide to understanding how computers really work. Patterson and Hennessy break down all the complicated thing about hardware and software in a super easy-to-follow way. Whether you're just starting out or you're already a pro, this book covers everything you need to know about computer architecture. It's packed with cool examples and explanations to make learning a breeze. If you're into computers, this book is a total game-changer and is actually helpful in a class!

Most textbooks are not that helpful for much more than reminding you of formulas or vocabulary, but this texbook does an excellent job of explaining and outlining CPU and Memory design and structure. The Appendix is also very helpful when designing RISC datapaths for various instructions. It breaks down the machine language clearly and gives an overall strong explaination of the topics. There are some curious design decisions for some of the datapath set ups that are a little unintuitive, but do still work.The book in paperback is relatively cheap, so its a really good bargain. While it may be tempting to get the third edition, which is only a few cents, this version does have a lot of changes and updates. CPU technology has changed significantly over the last few years, so I recommend this book for anyone in this field.

Most of the text is your generic architecture book, nothing special about it (very good though) except for chapter 4 about designing the microprocessor. This chapter itself makes the book! It presents many details on how to implement a CPU's datapath, both single-cycle and pipelined. This is the kind of material hard to come by in any book on the subject.My main complain is that too much of the interesting and unique content was pushed into the accompanying CD-ROM. I'd rather have removed some of the generic architecture stuff or the endless pages of exercises that you can find anywhere else and pushed some of this content onto the print!

I'm actually going BACK into this industry, which sort of shows where I am in life right now. They don't tell you in high school that engineering is really dull and boring, even if you get a good rank in a good program and a good job. This book explains these concepts well, and is the staple book in this domain. However, really consider the implications of having to be around this kind of stuff day in and day out if you are considering a career in this field.But trust me, hardware related jobs are MUCH more satisfying than jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Have many images unreadable and the navigation is not enough to hold the complex access you can do with the book. The resolution of many figures is very bad. The page with assembly MIPS is useless. If you buy any paperbook you win a cdrom with SPIM and inumerous contexts. In kindle edition you buy a badly paperbook conversion $10 or $12 more cheaper and you cannot access exclusive contexts. Its a deception.I think when you buy a kindle edition you can have a access to a server to download a iso with images of the exclusive contexts. Buying kindle edition you have discounts to buy another titles of this author, for example, I have the another title "Quantitative Approach" and another without cdrom or support.

While I accidentally bought the fourth instead of the (required) fifth edition, other than updating the sections where modern (a subjective term) hardware is talked about, there are no differences. This is a solid book, and is pretty much THE textbook for undergrad organization classes, as far as I understand. You probably won't go wrong with it. It's not dry, which is refreshing, and is well organized. The only gripe I have is all the appendices aren't in the book; some are someplace online (not quite sure where).

This is a review of the physical copy. The book is well-bound and I appreciated the green MIPS cheat-sheet. As for the content, the book is quite dense and lacking in example quantity and variety, but I'm surprised how much I'm able to retain, as the language used is pretty straightforward. My teacher ended up using the appendices (which are included on the CD-ROM) quite a bit; I would have liked to have them in a physical form, which is why I ordered the textbook in the first place -- so I guess that's a bit of a disappointment. Overall, I ended up liking the book's conciseness in conjunction with my teacher's lectures since I felt like the book quickly got "to the point," but someone who is reading this material independently might benefit from supplementary material.