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Код. Тайный язык информатики
by
Эта книга — азбука компьютерных технологий. Шаг за шагом автор знакомит читателя с сущностью кодирования информации, рассказывает об истории возникновения компьютеров, на практических примерах помогает освоить основные концепции информационных технологий, подробно излагает принципы работы процессора и других устройств компьютера.
Написанная живо, доступно, иногда иронично, ...more
Написанная живо, доступно, иногда иронично, ...more
Paperback, 512 pages
Published
2004
by Русская Редакция
(first published September 29th 1999)
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Start your review of Код. Тайный язык информатики

I'll be honest. I only read this book because it was quoted as a must read by Joel Spolsky on a stackexchange answer about how to go about learning programming (and finding out if you want/should be a programmer).
I was a little hesitant due to the year of release. Being at least some 11 years old that's a lot of time in the tech world. Ultimately though that doesn't matter. I defy any developer/programmer/system builder to read this book and not blitz through it lapping it up. Yes if you've done ...more
I was a little hesitant due to the year of release. Being at least some 11 years old that's a lot of time in the tech world. Ultimately though that doesn't matter. I defy any developer/programmer/system builder to read this book and not blitz through it lapping it up. Yes if you've done ...more

My opinion on this book is really divided : on the one hand I enjoy some chapters, on the other hand I hardly managed to restrain myself from flipping through other chapters. Basically, this book designs and builds a basic computer by introducing in each chapter a concept or a technology used inside computers. It was written from 1987 to 1999, consequently one shouldn't expect any description of newest technologies.
It starts really slowly with the first chapters, but then things get more and mor ...more
It starts really slowly with the first chapters, but then things get more and mor ...more

Jul 23, 2012
Cardinal Biggles
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
nonfiction,
computers
Raise your hand if you think metaphors and analogies should be used sparingly. I'll raise my hand with you. This book is for us.
After reading this book, I can see behind the pixels on my computer screen. I know what I'm really looking at. So many layers of abstraction are removed by learning about how logic gates can be arranged as processors and RAM, how code is simply a representation of those microscopic switches being flipped, and how pixels are simply a graphical interpretation of the state ...more
After reading this book, I can see behind the pixels on my computer screen. I know what I'm really looking at. So many layers of abstraction are removed by learning about how logic gates can be arranged as processors and RAM, how code is simply a representation of those microscopic switches being flipped, and how pixels are simply a graphical interpretation of the state ...more

Every single person in tech should read this book. Or if you're just interested in tech. Or if you just want a basic appreciation of one of the most important technologies in human history—the computer.
This book contains the best, most accessible explanation I've seen of how computers work, from hardware to software. The author manages to cover a huge range of topics—electricity, circuits, relays, binary, logic, gates, microprocessors, code, and much more—while doing a remarkable job of gradual ...more
This book contains the best, most accessible explanation I've seen of how computers work, from hardware to software. The author manages to cover a huge range of topics—electricity, circuits, relays, binary, logic, gates, microprocessors, code, and much more—while doing a remarkable job of gradual ...more

Dec 03, 2009
Mike
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
nerds, geeks, smarty pants
Shelves:
development
Electricity is like nothing else in this universe, and we must confront it on it's own terms. That sentence, casually buried near the beginning of the book, exemplifies the engineer's muse: a striving to become aware of the inhuman, how it operates, and to find means of creating a socket for human enterprise, something to extend the fallible chassis of our flesh.
The first two-thirds or so of this book follows a double track. One track covers the ways in which meaning may be encoded into messages ...more
The first two-thirds or so of this book follows a double track. One track covers the ways in which meaning may be encoded into messages ...more

If you work with computers and didn't read this book, you are lame.
...more

This is a great book. Surprisingly interesting.
While the subject matter is not a new thing to me - far from it - the way the author goes about telling the story of how modern computers came to life is exciting, engaging and fun. He starts with morse and braille, talks about the principles of mathematics and information, explains the critical concept of switches, and finally moves into the world of circuit boards and binary data, cultimating in ALU. After that, he discusses the idea of analytical ...more
While the subject matter is not a new thing to me - far from it - the way the author goes about telling the story of how modern computers came to life is exciting, engaging and fun. He starts with morse and braille, talks about the principles of mathematics and information, explains the critical concept of switches, and finally moves into the world of circuit boards and binary data, cultimating in ALU. After that, he discusses the idea of analytical ...more

I have been an IT professional for 20 years, but I never knew what the switches on the front panel of the Altar computer were for. I do now.
In fact, because of this book, I know many things about how a computer really works that I never did before. I think this book is great for anyone, except Electrical Engineers who would be bored. Having some background in computers probably makes this book easier to get through, but Petzold assumes nothing and starts from scratch. He does a good job of makin ...more
In fact, because of this book, I know many things about how a computer really works that I never did before. I think this book is great for anyone, except Electrical Engineers who would be bored. Having some background in computers probably makes this book easier to get through, but Petzold assumes nothing and starts from scratch. He does a good job of makin ...more

What a ride! A book about computers “without pictures of trains carrying a cargo of zeroes and ones” — the absolute no-nonsense book on the internals of the computer. From circuits with a battery, switch and bulb to logic gates to a thorough description of the Intel 8080. Great way to fill blanks in my computer knowledge.
The book takes the approach of constructing the computer “on the paper and in our minds” — that's great when you're at least a little familiar with the topic, maybe not so when
...more
I LOVE this book. I regard myself an innocent computer illiterate. And Petzold helps me to walk inside an electrical circuit, a telephone, a telegraph, an adding machine, a computer, and to understand the basics behind the design, of what is going on inside. I start getting the math, the logic behind all this technology that has become pretty much the center of my life today. And I should understand the logic behind the center of my life, right?
What is so good about this book: it is written in ...more
What is so good about this book: it is written in ...more

This book basicaly tries to take you from the very basics of how to encode information, such as how binary is used to represent complex information, to understanding how a computer uses information like this to perform intricate operations. The route between those two points is the interesting part, and there was some parts that I foudn really illuminating and important. For example, I didn't understand hexadecimal numbers (or indeed what base 4, base 8, etc) numbers meant before I read this boo
...more

Mar 23, 2018
Alex Telfar
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
not-at-library
Very close to my ideal book. Starts from understandable foundations and builds from there. Charles doesnt try to explain through high level metaphors (that do a poor job of capturing the truth -- I am frustrated after picking up another apparently interesting physics book only to find it contains no math), rather, he slowly builds on simple examples. And while it does get pretty complex, Charles doesnt avoid it. !!!
For a while I have been frustrated about my understanding of computers. I underst ...more
For a while I have been frustrated about my understanding of computers. I underst ...more

Such a fun and interesting book. Petzold goes back to the very basics to explain how to build a computer (of sorts) from the ground up. First he explains binary (via morse code and Braille), then he introduces relays and switches, then gates and Boolean logic, and before you know it you're building an electronic counting machine. He continues with a potted history of transistors, microchips, RAM, ROM, character encoding and all sorts of other fun stuff.
I skipped over some pages, because I don't ...more
I skipped over some pages, because I don't ...more

Wow. I wish I had had this book back when I was taking my first Computer Architecture course in college! It carries you along from the very fundamentals of both codes (like braille) and electric circuits in the telegraph days all the way to the web in a way that even a layperson could understand, with plenty of verbal and diagrammatic explanation. It does at points get pretty deep into the weeds but I really appreciated the author's efforts to provide such an exhaustive dive into how computers w
...more

This book is the perfect depth for novices but also people who are “in tech” and don’t really understand how it all works (like me). I can now look around at all the electronics in my house and feel like I know what’s fundamentally going on. Knowledge is empowering! The last chapter of the book felt a bit rushed and ended abruptly, but maybe that’s just my wanting the book to go on longer/end at present day. Overall, I loved it and will surely be recommending it to anyone who asks how computers
...more

In brief: be prepared to skim through at least 25% of this book! If I had this book in a seminar freshman year, I might have completed the Computer Science program. In a very fun manner, this book presents 3 years of introductory CS curricula: discrete structures, algorithms, logic gates, ... After reading this during two cross-country flights, I better understand (and remember) classes I took 10 years ago. Almost makes me want to try again (*almost*).

Sep 14, 2019
Imi
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science,
non-fiction,
own-physical,
he-writes,
technology,
computer-science,
maths,
read-in-2019,
2019-top-reads
This book has really taught me a lot, despite the fact that many of the later chapters lost me somewhat; it felt like it became much more complicated and hard to follow after the earlier chapters, which were great, slowly paced and well explained. While Petzold does assume the reader is starting from scratch, I think it would be easier to follow later on if you had some background in computers/technology. As it was, I had to bombard my dad (an electronic engineer) with questions to even make it
...more

Just finished reading my b-day gift, the 'Code' by Charles Petzold - probably the best engineering book I've ever read. By saying 'engineering', I mean it. Unlike other computer science books, the 'Code' teaches how computers work in a nutshell. It leads you from the very basics like morse & braille codes to boolean algebra and various numeric systems, from simple tiny electric circuits which bulb the lamp to primitive adding machine (built from relays, hehe), up to history of development and en
...more

Since I loved Charles Petzold's The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine, I wondered if he'd written other books about the foundations of computer science. Code seemed like an obvious candidate.
This book explains, in as much details as you could possibly hope, and then some, how a computer works.
Since I've been a professional software developer for about two decades, the title of the book, Code, gave me an impression that it ...more
This book explains, in as much details as you could possibly hope, and then some, how a computer works.
Since I've been a professional software developer for about two decades, the title of the book, Code, gave me an impression that it ...more

So I've reread this book once more because I felt it was great, yet I could not give it 5/5 before.
And I'll keep my 4/5, same as it was rated before.
Generally the content of this book is great and introduces fundamentals of why and how things work in computers.
But... I have a feeling that author tried to target two disjoint audiences: people who have little knowledge of computers at all and power users who will connect current knowledge about computers with new facts from this book, experiencin ...more
And I'll keep my 4/5, same as it was rated before.
Generally the content of this book is great and introduces fundamentals of why and how things work in computers.
But... I have a feeling that author tried to target two disjoint audiences: people who have little knowledge of computers at all and power users who will connect current knowledge about computers with new facts from this book, experiencin ...more

Feb 16, 2017
Geoff
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-fiction,
computer-science
I really enjoyed most of this book. The slow unfolding of how computers are built actually work was extremely fascinating - from simple lightbulb circuits to logic gates to RAM to keyboards and monitors. Unfortunately, parts of this book seem quite dated (most anything discussing "contemporary" technology, i.e. 1990s computers) and the final chapter on the graphical revolution goes through way too much, way too fast to be of any use. A few chapters were tempting to skim For example, Petzold incl
...more

With a desire to learn how the high level code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.) I write on a daily basis actually makes its way through the magical land that is a computer and returns pleasantries to a human being behind the screen, I sat down with this "Code" book. The book is very intriguing from the start, beginning with the earliest forms of code (Morse, Braille, etc.). Petzold spends a long time laying down the basic blocks of electrical engineering before progressing to how bits flow through
...more

The book reminds me of the courses that students usually have during the first year of the University. It provides a general overview of how computers function. Starting from workings of an electrical circuit and building up to various logical elements with gradually increasing complexity. It also discusses some relevant historical moments as a typical professor in a typical lecture would do and ends with a broad overview of personal computers as they were in 1999.
The summary on the back of the ...more
The summary on the back of the ...more

This was a wonderful non-fiction read, especially the first 15 or so chapters. Chapter 17 ("Automation"), however, was where I began to feel a bit in over my head. While that chapter was fairly thorough, when I got to later chapters and realized I couldn't quite grok what was going on in these chips, it was hard for me to tell whether I was holding myself back by not fully understanding the concepts of Chapter 17, or if Petzold was simply glossing over some of the details that might have clued m
...more

This book is quite incredible. You start with braille and simple light switches, make your way to oscillators, flip-flops and multiplexer, and suddenly you understand how computer hardware works. And that's coming from someone who already thought they "sorta" understood how it worked. I didn't really. Now I do. Best bottom-up education ever.
...more

I really, really truly love this book. The beginning is slightly slow, but after the 1/3 mark or so, I couldn't put it down(literally. hello, 5am.)
I probably learned more about architecture from this book than the quarter in my Architecture & OS class at university. ...more
I probably learned more about architecture from this book than the quarter in my Architecture & OS class at university. ...more

Feb 22, 2011
Randall Hunt
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
CS Majors, Everyone
Shelves:
all-time-greats
Definitely one of the greats. If not already, it soon will be, a staple of computer science literature. It's both a narrative history of Computer Science and a brilliant introduction to systems and programming. This book should be a pre-requisite for introductory CS classes.
...more

Apr 24, 2020
Ondrej Urban
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
spiritual-presence
One - in this case one in how the Queen would use this - cannot really talk about this book without comparing it to But How Do It Know? - The Basic Principles of Computers for Everyone, since they cover a lot of the same ground (and one has read the other one first).
Code's mission in life is to help the user understand the basic principles behind the computer design and convince them that it's not actually that tricky and that your great-grandparents could have build one themselves. Naturally, t ...more
Code's mission in life is to help the user understand the basic principles behind the computer design and convince them that it's not actually that tricky and that your great-grandparents could have build one themselves. Naturally, t ...more

A very nice introduction into what makes computers tick. It's detailed enough to give you a sense on how things work, yet not overly complicated to intimidate you. I really liked the gradual introduction to concepts of increasing complexity where each builds on the one before it. I feel like I've learned a lot by reading this book, especially since we had no relevant computer architecture courses in college.
That said, I have a couple of complaints.
One is that I feel the author covers the initial ...more
That said, I have a couple of complaints.
One is that I feel the author covers the initial ...more
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Charles Petzold has been writing about programming for Windows-based operating systems for 24 years. A Microsoft MVP for Client Application Development and a Windows Pioneer Award winner, Petzold is author of the classic Programming Windows, currently in its sixth edition and one of the best-known programming books of all time; the widely acclaimed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware an
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“Code is not like other how-computers-work books. It doesn't have big color illustrations of disk drives with arrows showing how the data sweeps into the computer. Code has no drawings of trains carrying a cargo of zeros and ones. Metaphors and similes are wonderful literary devices but they do nothing but obscure the beauty of technology.”
—
10 likes
“In 1948, while working for Bell Telephone Laboratories, he published a paper in the Bell System Technical Journal entitled "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" that not only introduced the word bit in print but established a field of study today known as information theory. Information theory is concerned with transmitting digital information in the presence of noise (which usually prevents all the information from getting through) and how to compensate for that. In 1949, he wrote the first article about programming a computer to play chess, and in 1952 he designed a mechanical mouse controlled by relays that could learn its way around a maze. Shannon was also well known at Bell Labs for riding a unicycle and juggling simultaneously.”
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