[geeks] books on computer architecture

[Dave McGuire]

On March 13, Bill Bradford wrote:
> Anybody recommend any decent books on computer architecture?

  I highly recommend "Computer Architecture - A Quantitative Approach"
by Hennessy and Patterson.  It's not a light read, and very expensive,
but well worth it.

  Also...One of the finest books I own (and I have quite a few) has to
be "Parallel Computers" by Hockney and Jesshope.  Whether you're
interested in what's typically referred to as "parallel processing" or
not, it's a wonderful book.  It deals with parallel processing, which
may or may not have anything to do with multiprocessor computers,
depending on how you think about it. (for example, the venerable Z80
microprocessor exhibits a degree of parallelism...it processes eight
bits at a time through its ALU.  There are processors which DON'T do
things that way.)

  "High Performance Computing" by Dowd and Severance (an O'Reilly book)
is wonderful, but much higher-level...while its focus is on
performance optimization techniques in the context of RISC processors,
anyone can learn a great deal from it.

  "Structured Computer Organization" by Tanenbaum is good, as is
"Computer Organization & Design: The Hardware/Software Interface" also
by Hennessy and Patterson.

  Very low-level things...gates, boolean operations, and the like...are
covered very well by a very nice book called "Digital Computers" by
Deem, Muchow, and Zeppa.

     -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL         "Less talk.  More synthohol." --Lt. Worf