Structured Computer Organization

by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Todd Austin

This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book.

Structured Computer Organization, specifically written for undergraduate students, is a best-selling guide that provides an accessible introduction to computer hardware and architecture. This text will also serve as a useful resource for all computer professionals and engineers who need an overview or introduction to computer architecture.

This book takes a modern structured, layered approach to understanding computer systems. It's highly accessible - and it's been thoroughly updated to reflect today's most critical new technologies and the latest developments in computer organization and architecture. Tanenbaum’s renowned writing style and painstaking research make this one of the most accessible and accurate books available, maintaining the author’s popular method of presenting a computer as a series of layers, each one built upon the ones below it, and understandable as a separate entity.

Genres: Computer Science, Programming, Textbooks, Nonfiction, Computers, Technology, Reference

800 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[snpefk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ничего не понял, но картинки угарные

[Nelson Minar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been hacking pretty deep on computers for more than half my life - I wrote my first 6502 assembly code at age 12, back in 1984 or so. But I never understood any of the details of what was going inside the box, I've never gone below the assembly code level before. I have to take the Computer Science GRE (bleah!) soon, though, so that was a good excuse to learn a little computer architecture. (I did fine on it, btw!).
Tanenbaum is a great book to learn that from. It's a bit simplistic (perfect sophomore CS textbook, I think), but the organization that he presents is excellent and it's fun to read. He starts from the bottom, a transistor (sadly, no quantum mechanics), and moves up through logic gates, LSI, simple computer design, VLSI, microcode, and then up to the software that runs on the hardware. Hardware makes sense to me now! Well, at least more so.

[Kristine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A+ for the use of humor! The IJVM was pretty cool.

[Russ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is excellent, and covers a lot of fundamental computer architecture topics. It is, however, a bit dated at this point. The examples do the job, but so does Knuth v.1, so just go read that.

[Nick Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

The deeper processor design is covered just lightly enough to leave you utterly confused. Other than that, a solid introduction to architectural considerations.

[Mcebo Michael Metfula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Very deep. Nice humor.

[Tom Quast · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a good overview of the inner workings in our technological world. From Mice/Keyboards to processors/memory and Networks and Hard Drives. It does so in a detailed manner, however the main focus is to give an overview rather to go in depth with every presented concept.

The Good
- Good illustrations of the concepts
- Humor and tone keeps interesting without getting in the way
- Good overview, pace and length

The Bad
- The material is inherently dry
- Requires basic knowledge about computer architecture
- Requires focus of the reader

The Conclusion
This is not a bad book by any means. The content is dry, but the author manages to keep it interesting to read. However, it requires mental focus of the reader to make it through the book. It also sometimes goes a bit overboard with complexity - is it really necessary to have ~50 problems/tasks at the end of every chapter?

[Suz · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst textbooks I was (forced) to read. If it was just reading, it's fine, but the way the problems are phrased is absoloutely terrible. Rest in peace anybody who has to make it though this load of rubbish - you're better off just resorting to the internet if you don't want to shave 10 years off your life from boredom.

[Martin Herbordt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned computer architecture from the *1st* edition, which I still have.
This is from the pre Hennessy and Patterson days, when there was little quantitative assessment of computer architectures and it was more art than engineering. See "Soul of a new machine".
But remarkably prescient for basing the entire book on virtual machines! And, as always, Tanenbaum's great writing.

[Roman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Классика Computer Science, хуле тут уточнять.
Отдельные места книги обязательно буду неоднократно перечитывать позже. Приложение про ассемблер например. Ну, когда руки дойдут поиграться с таким низкоуровневым программированием

[heptagrammaton]

review of [this edition]* as a physical object:
  I would say this has printer paper quality paper, but (somehow) my printer paper is actually better.
   I would also say the print is pale and blurry, and (somehow) my printer's is better.
_____
 * Pearson International Edition, 2012

[Ryein Goddard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for a college course book.

[Kerian Samaru · Rating 1 out of 5]

Easy to understand.

[Imaculate Mosha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humorous yet deeply technical book. Volume aside, it is very beginner friendly.

[Didier "Dirac Ghost" Gaulin · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a first entry into the topic of computer organization, Tanenbaum's effort is a jewel in a mountain of rock. From the perspective of a mathematician, the book has a non-rigorous frame, which was rather disorienting for me, at first, but as time went by, following the intuitive explanations of the book, I got accustomed to what I call the engineering frame work. Going through every layers of abstractions in a computer system, with a focus on digital logic, microarchitecture and the ISA layers, the author highlight the differences in organizations using 3 types of machines; A core i7, an ARM chip and a basic microcontroller in a very clear and coherent way. Certain terms are introduced too early, without much explanations, but the author always comes back to it, later on, in details. All in all, an great introduction for any undergraduate in CS.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the 3rd edition of this book. The book reads well - it starts off assuming that the reader has little knowledge about computer architecture and gradually builds upon that. The book is not as detailed or technical as other books of its nature, but it does make for an easier read for newcomers to the topic. The complaint I have against this is that while the flow is good, the reading is not - the book's somewhat boring, but I guess that applies to books you have to read just to finish a university course.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

read parts of this for school. interesting but awfully dry and requires some serious mental focus. that said, I now understand a little more what goes on under the hoods of these machines that I use everyday.

[Joey Baker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Im going to kill myself before I get through the whole thing. Binary numbers are fun though!

[Avinesh]

it is a good book

[Amin Heidari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!

[Ajuna]

Very interesting book.