[geeks] books on computer architecture

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Wednesday, March 13, 2002 at 19:40:10 (-0600), Bill Bradford wrote: ]
> Subject: [geeks] books on computer architecture
>
> Anybody recommend any decent books on computer architecture?

For older mainframe and minicomputer stuff you really cannot beat this
true bible on the subject:

	Computer Architecture:  Concepts and Evolution
	Gerrit A. Blaauw
	Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
	Addison-Wesley, 1997
	ISBN 0-201-10557-8

As they say in the preface it's more of a guide and reference, not a
text book.  You'll have to know a bit of the basics before you'll get
much out of it.

(I found my copy in a used bookstore, with a library-style plastic
slip-cover protector, for $35[cdn], in the "architecture" section!
Later searches revealed that even used it sells for well over double
that price when properly classified!)

I learned the basics from a really rather old series of textbooks, but
this is perhaps the most lucid and still reasonably current in my
collection:

	Computer Architecture
	Second Edition
	Caxton C. Foster
	Van Nostrand Reinhold, Ltd., 1976
	ISBN 0-442-22434-6

You can apparently still buy this book online (though I don't know if
it's a used copy, or new copies are still available):

	http://www.allbookstores.com/book/0442224346

I can give you a bibliography of other texts I learned a lot of the
lower level fundamentals (logic, boolean algebra, circuit design, etc.)
from if you like, though most are not in print any more (in any edition)
so unless you use the library, or like browsing in used book stores, you
may not find any.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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