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Reddit mentions of Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)
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Reddit mentions: 23
We found 23 Reddit mentions of Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design). Here are the top ones.
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>I do have a textbook called "C: A modern approach" by King, but like I said before, I think it focuses more on the coding aspect.
Most books that focus on C are going to be about learning the language. If you want to learn low level stuff, you need to find books that focus on them (and they'll usually incidentally use C). The language itself is quite small and minimalistic in what it can do. Most heavy handed things like networking and GUIs require interaction with the OS.
Eg, if you wanted to do networking, you could use the Windows API or the POSIX socket API (POSIX being the standards that *nix systems follow -- and certain versions of Windows). Or you could use a higher level library like curl for cross platform support (and a wealth of nicer features).
>Can somebody please guide me on where to start?
Firstly, as much of a linux fanboy I am, I do want to make sure you know that you don't need to use Linux for any of the other things you wanted to learn (low-level programming, command lines, networking, etc). In fact, my OS class mostly used Linux, but we started out with a project using Windows threads (I guess the prof wanted us to see the difference from POSIX threading).
All that said, I do think Linux is something you'd want to learn and that a lot of low level things just seem more natural in Linux. But I'm biased. Linux fanboy, remember?
I'd start with downloading a Linux OS. Doesn't really matter which. I'd recommend going with Ubuntu. It's the most popular, easiest to find help with, and seems to be what most web servers are running, to boot. You can play around with the GUI for a bit if you want. It won't feel that different. Modern OSes sort of converged into the same high level ideas.
My favourite book for getting into the command line ever so slightly touching the low level aspects of OSes is Mark Sobel's A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming. It will include some basic knowledge of Linux, but mostly focuses on the command line. But this is very useful because not only is the command line very practical to learn, but you'll end up learning a lot about Linux in the process (eg, by learning how everything is a file, how pipes work, etc). And arguably the command line a super big part of Linux, anyway. It makes sense as the first step.
Now, for the next step, you need to know C very well. So finish with your class, first. Read ahead if you have to. Yes, you already know if statements and functions and all, but do you understand pointers well? How about function pointers and void pointers? Do you understand how C's arrays work and the usage of pointer arithmetic? How about how arguments are passed to functions and when you'd want to pass a pointer to a function instead? As a rough skill testing question, you should implement a linked list for arbitrary data types with functions such as prepending, appending, concatenating lists, searching, removing, and iterating through the list. Make sure that your list can be allocated and freed correctly (no memory leaks).
Anyway, the next step is to learn OSes. Now, I said OSes and not Linux, because the Linux OS is a bit constrained if you want to learn low level programming (which would include a knowledge of what OSes in general do, and alternatives to OSes like Linux). But never fear, pretty much any OS book will heavily use Linux as an example of how things work and consequently explain a great deal of Linux internals. I can't recommend a class because mine was a regular university class, but Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems is a good book on the subject.
In particular, you can expect an OS class to not merely be focused on building an OS yourself (my class worked on aspects of OS101 to implement portions of our own OS), but also on utilizing low level aspects of existing OSes. Eg, as mentioned, my class involved working with Linux threading, as well as processes. We later implemented the syscalls for
fork,join, etc ourselves, which was a fascinating exercise. Nothing gets you to understand how Linux creates processes like doing it yourself.Do note, however, that I had taken a class on computer architecture (I found Computer Organization and Design a good book there, although note that I never did any of the excerises in the book, which seem to be heavily criticized in the reviews). It certainly helps in understand OSes. It's basically as low as you can go with programming (and a bit lower, entering the domain of computer engineering). I cannot say for sure if it's absolutely necessary. I would recommend it first, but it's probably skippable if you're not interested (personally, I found it phenomenally interesting).
For learning networking, Beej's book is well written. You don't need to know OSes before this or anything.
Look into computer engineering. If you're interested in hardware meets software, you'll explore computer architecture.
See: Computer Architecture Quantitative Approach
and
Computer Organization and Design
The good news is that MIPS is possibly the most straightforward assembly language to code or read. Compared to x86, it's a dream.
If your class is computer architecture related, you will probably be learning from Hennessy and Patterson, which is an excellent book covering hardware and software.
If you want to learn MIPS from a software perspective, check out the classic See MIPS Run.
You might check out some books by Hennessy and Patterson, eg,
http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Architecture/dp/0123744938/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228140896&sr=8-2
So far the best books I have read on computers and operating systems. Talks about the same stuff as this article, but with more detail. They're grad level texts, but I didn't have a problem havnig no CS background.
Not sure if it's quite what you're looking for but Computer Organization & Design - The HW/SW Interface is a fantastic book on processor architecture and uses the MIPS design as an example through the entire text including good stuff on MIPS assembly programming. The link is for the latest edition (fourth) but if you want to go cheaper the third edition is still available. I used (and still use, about to tutor a course on CompArch) the third edition and it's one of the most useful texts I have ever owned.
Per testare le acque velocemente puoi usare https://rubymonk.com/ (introduce Ruby in modo basico). Anche Coursera, Khan, Udacity e simili hanno corsi introduttivi sulla programmazione.
Mentre se vuoi imparare a programmare, il percorso deve toccare almeno tutte queste tappe, in ordine:
Organization-Design-Fourth-Edition/dp/0123744938)
Da qui puoi partire e specializzarti in quello che ti interessa
Sounds like what you're interested in is computer architecture. This is the study of how a computer system (whether it's chip level or system level) is organized and designed from a higher-level abstraction (usually at the register-transfer level or above). There are plenty of good resources on this, including many books (this one comes to mind). Not knowing your background, I can't say if this would be much of a stretch for you. I would say prior to jumping to this level you should have an idea of basic MOS logic design, sequential and combinational logic as well as some background in delays and timing.
Your best bet is probably to find a good old book on amazon or ebay and read to your hearts content. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions (I design microprocessors for a living).
I enjoyed writing a small MIPS simulator with this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Edition/dp/0123744938
Have you seen the MIPS WikiBooks site?
It's not complete, but after a cursory inspection it looks as though it may be useful for beginners.
What textbook is your class using? I believe that the textbook my course assigned (though I may or may not be able to recommend it as I may or may not have ever read it...) was this one.
Get a good handle of digital electronics (statemachines, combinatorial logic and registered logic). They'll give you a good basis for building up an understanding of how a computer works.
Digital Design and Computer Architecture
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Design-Computer-Architecture-Harris/dp/0123704979
That book will take you through basic digital design, Verilog HDL, and then show you how to use Verilog to build a MIPS-like microprocessor (DLX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLX).
Much of the later material is derived from this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Architecture/dp/0123744938/ref=pd_sim_b_1
----------------------------------------------------------
Steve Gibson did a series of podcasts called How Computers Work.
http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm
Search for HOW COMPUTERS WORK
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If you have any questions or need any other resources in the future, reply to my post.
Instead of learning assembly for it own sake I would learn about computer architectonic (eg. Computer Organization and Design by Patterson and Hennessy) after that you will have no problem picking any normal assembly language up in a couple of hours
I myself had it 2 year on my computer science BS.c.
I found this book to be pretty readable. It uses a simplified MIPS-style processor for everything.
I've been trying to follow [Berkley's CS61C] (http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61c/sp13/) just going through lecture notes and assignments they post online and they use Computer Organization and Design and The C Programming Language
methinks it's a neat combo, the Design book is somewhat heavy but it's pretty intuitive for those coming from zero EE background
As someone else mentioned, the Hennessy and Patterson Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, and the Patterson and Hennessy Computer Organization and Design are the de facto standards (I used both in my Comp. Eng. undergrad) and are really fantastic books (the latter being more "software" oriented so to speak).
They are not EE textbooks (as far as I know) but they are text books nonetheless. A great book I found that is slightly dated but gives a simplified review of many processors is Inside the Machine: An Illustrated Introduction to Microprocessors and Computer Architecture which is less technical but I enjoyed it very much all the same. It is NOT a textbook, and I highly, highly recommend it.
Hope that helps!
Just going from a bunch of hardware to the point where you can input machine code to be executed is a vast topic in itself (and something I don't have knowledge of). Once you can input machine language and have it execute though, I at least have an idea.
You can use machine code to write an assembler, which is a lot of work but not particularly complex.
You can use an assembler to write a compiler (good luck with this one, I'm in compiler design right now and it's a mind blow).
You can use a compiler to write pong.
There are many topics that you can really get acquainted with by just wandering the web. I don't think this is one of them. Once you get it you can really go some complex places, so what you're likely to find online is either too simple, or too complex for the understanding you seek. With dedication a book can probably help you, but if you can make nice with a teacher--auditing a computer organization/assembly language class will really open your eyes to what is going on in there.
Take a look at the course listing at a local college and e-mail the teacher, see if they'll let you audit their class.
This was my textbook for that class, it's decent. Maybe you can find an early edition for cheap:
http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Architecture/dp/0123744938/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1302110540&sr=8-2-spell
>Start at the bottom. Some books I liked...
>
>Learn what a computer does: Computer Organization & design - Patterson & Hennessy
>
>Learn C: Programming in C - Stephen Kochan
>
>VERY IMPORTANT learn your data structures: Introduction to Algorithms
>
>You will have learn Java in university, I found this book good: Absolute Java 4th ed.
>
>This is just scratching the surface, a lot more to learn afterword.
Don't worry, FTFH
Computer Organization and Design, Fourth Edition: The Hardware/Software Interface
Agree. It depends on what you want to know, and how much you're willing to commit to learning. It's a big world. Code is a nice book if you want a very very simple explanation of the basics of bits and bytes and logic gates. It might be a good place to start, though it's intended for a non-technical audience and you may find it a little TOO simple. A proper digital systems book will go in to much more detail about digital logic (AND gates, flip-flops etc.). You might be surprised just how easy to learn the fundamentals are. I learned from Tocci which I found to be excellent, but that was a long time ago and I'm sure there's many other good ones around.
That's pretty low level digit circuits though. If you are really serious about learning computer architecture, I'd highly recommend Patterson and Hennssey . It covers the guts of how processors execute instructions, pipelining, caches, virtual memory and more.
If you're more interested in specific, modern technologies... then obviously Wikipedia, or good tech review sites. Especially reviews that focus on major new architectures. I remember reading lots of good in depth stuff about Intel's Nehalem architecture back when it was new, or nvidia's Fermi. There's a wealth of information out there about CUDA and GPU computing which may give you a sense of how GPUs are so different to CPUs. Also when I first started learning many years ago, I loved my copy of Upgrading and Repairing PCs , great for a less technical, more hobbyist perspective.
Lastly, ask questions! For example, you ask about DDR vs GDDR. Deep inside the memory chips themselves, actually not a great deal of difference. But the interface between the memory and the processor are quite different, they're designed for very different purposes. I'm simplifying here but CPUs have relatively low levels of parallism, they tend to operate on small units of memory (say a single value) at a time, they have quite unpredictable access patterns so low latency is essential, and the cores often work tightly together so coherency has to be maintained. With GPUs, they have a very predictable access pattern, so you can load much larger chunks at a time, latency is less important since you can easily keep your processors busy while memory is streamed in, and the GPUs many many tiny processors for the most part all work on separate words of memory, so coherence usually does not need to be maintained and they have much less need for caches.
The "L" (Level) naming for caches is quite simple. Memory that is closer to the core is faster to access. Generally each core has it's own L1 and L2, with L2 being slightly slower but there's more of it, and all cores share an L3, slower still but way more of it. Memory on the cpu is made out of transistors and is super fast but also takes up alot of space. Look how big the L3 is (here)[http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/the-intel-haswell-e-cpu-review-core-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-tested] and that's just 20MB. external ram is obviously much slower, but it is made out of capacitors and has much higher densities.
Here's the lab course website: https://engineering.purdue.edu/~ece437l/materials.shtml
I'm not sure how helpful that will be since the course was very hands-on and most of the value I got was out of interaction with the TAs.
The lecture notes weren't posted online iirc. The book we used is Patterson and Hennessy
I learned mostly from:
http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Architecture-Fifth-Quantitative-Approach/dp/012383872X
But this has alot of information in it, and was the book for the prerequisite of the class I took that Used the above book:
http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Architecture/dp/0123744938
I would suggest that the carlh programming guides is not a bad idea then!
I would heavily suggest learning C well - this is a language that was designed to stay close to the hardware while being portable, and is a very small language. So, buy a copy of the K&R Book, ever C programmer has one.
Then, Patterson's book is a tome for computer engineering. It'll show you assembly, all the way down to NAND gates.
I would suggest you start by watching and working through Berkeley's CS61C course. It's the logically second course in CS, and after a quick overview of C it dives into the machine itself. Website here, videos here. Also, Dan Garcia is an excellent lecturer.
Once you have all the machine details down, you'll probably feel hampered by your actual program wizardry. This is where you start looking into algorithms and data structures. Your go-to guide here is probably Cormen's Introduction to Algorithms since it handles both data structures and algorithms. It's definitely more of a theoretical/CS-ey book, so if this is not what you want, then Head First Java will teach you a new language (and learning more languages is one of the best ways to grow as a programmer!) and also do many data structures. In fact, you can get both those books and have the light side and the serious side of programming books.
At this point you should be well equipped to go off in whatever direction you want with programming. Start contributing to open source projects! Find things that interest you and try to solve problems! Being a part of the programming community will be your biggest aid in both learning programming and starting to make money through it. People pay for programmers that they know can deliver, and success in the open source world means a lot, and you don't need to go to school for it to get to this point!
Lastly, many CS/programming folks hang out on IRC. If you have questions, find the appropriate IRCS channels and go talk to people. Good luck and welcome to programming!
See if your library has this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Edition/dp/0123744938
It's what we used in my computer organization course and I found it to be quite helpful. If you are desperate, a PDF version of your book is comes up as the second result on google...
Going to a private, but non-profit institution, its cool.
(as a matter of fact, a friend has friends that go to bent state university and after comparing physics hw found that, well our curriculum is much harder, I guess their intro final had a "draw a line to match the term to its definition" type thing)
Anywho, one of our compsci upper level courses is based on this book http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Architecture/dp/0123744938/ref=la_B000APBUAE_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406428553&sr=1-2 It goes through and explains computer architecture for an actual cpu, I don't recall how easy it is to read however. (if you buy it and it makes no sense, the intro book we use was called, "an invitation to computer science", but get an adition or two back from current if you buy)
Finally you can a bunch of info here http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm