[geeks] books on computer architecture

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

> Anybody recommend any decent books on computer architecture?

I learned a -lot- of what I know from Patterson & Hennessy's
_Computer_Organization_&_Design_, ISBN 1-55860-428-6.  It's fairly
generic, but it illustrates most of the topics as they pertain to the
design of the MIPS CPU family.

The book's homepage is here:
  http://www.mkp.com/books_catalog/catalog.asp?ISBN=1-55860-428-6

There's a more advanced "flavor" of the book, called
_Computer_Architecture_, by the same authors.  ISBN 1-55860-596-7.

That book's homepage is here:
  http://www.mkp.com/books_catalog/catalog.asp?ISBN=1-55860-596-7

They're a little heavy on CPU design and assembly language.  So, if you're
looking for a "big picture" book of how all the various buses fit
together, these probably aren't what you're looking for.  Nevertheless,
they're great books if you want to know how the CPU talks to the rest of
the system, or even how the CPU executes code within itself.

--Jonathan