To understand the computer, the authors introduce the LC-3 and provide the LC-3 Simulator to give students hands-on access for testing what they learn. To develop their understanding of programming and programming methodology, they use the C programming language. The book takes a "motivated" bottom-up approach, where the students first get exposed to the big picture and then start at the bottom and build their knowledge bottom-up. Within each smaller unit, the same motivated bottom-up approach is followed. Every step of the way, students learn new things, building on what they already know. The authors feel that this approach encourages deeper understanding and downplays the need for memorizing. Students develop a greater breadth of understanding, since they see how the various parts of the computer fit together.

This is what I said about the first edition:
... a good introductory book.

I'm a tech writer with a background in the sciences, and used this book in a "Computers from the bottom up" class. We had an excellent teacher, and without her the obscurities of presentation would have defeated several class members.

On the minus side: From a writer's point of view, what is needed is another editing pass to get rid of poor sentence sequences and poorly explained exercises. Also, it's sometimes difficult to follow examples with illustrations on one page and verbal description on another: production values need to be rethought. From a student's point of view, much of the essential information is buried in small print sections, which make the book frustrating to use.

But-- on the plus side, the book, used with the excellent Power Point slides provided online, is the best thing available for a true bottoms-up approach. It discusses the basic logic components and their relationship to Boolean logic, instruction sets, and programming at a basic level. Personally, I found the LC-2 simulator great fun to use, very helpful to my understanding of "how things work".


Clear, easy-to-understand goodness.   November 23, 2004
Kathy100 (CA, USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I started out knowing next to nothing about Computer Architecture, and yet I was still able to, by myself, read and understand most everything in this book. The chapters are laid out intelligently, with each one building on what was taught before. The diagrams are clear and helpful, and there are plenty of tables and example problems (very clear, thoroughly worked out examples!) spread throughout.

While there is a chapter or two in the middle that people who already are familiar with C might find tedious, they're pretty clearly marked and easy enough to skim through.

I definitely recommend this book to any beginner wishing to learn about computer architecture.


Excellent Book to Teach You the Basics of the Computer   May 6, 2007
N. Crayton (Champaign, IL United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book is really good for learning the basics of how a computer functions. It takes you from the low-level Flip-Flops to explaining how a register and other small components of a computer work. Then the book shows you the basic components a computer, and then gives a full example in the LC-3. The LC-3 is complete with a architecture diagram and Assembly instructions. The book does a good job of of taking you through the LC-3 data path and showing how an instruction is implemented on the architecture. The book also does a good job of showing how the assembly code connects to higher level languages like C/++ or Java. It also gives a high-level explanation of exactly what a compiler does. Towards the end it gives some information on data structures and particularly as to how a stack would be implemented by the LC-3 in assembly. The book also explains how memory works and how input and output are handled in some computers.

Some problems with the book are in the C section. This book does not give a real C tutorial, there are much better guides to C programming.It doesn't really give you any instruction as to how to program in LC-3 Assembly; however, the instructions are simple enough that you should be able to figure it out. Another potential problem is the combinational logic section. This part of the book is not really comprehensive, but teaches what you need to know so that you understand how all the low-level components work; however, if you want to design your own combinational logic, then there are other books for that. Also this book does not really go into the theory of how and why they developed the LC-3 architecture as it is. It is just an intro to get you used how a computer architecture looks and how it works.

All in all a great read for a CS student or Electrical Engineer to get an idea of how a computer runs the programs written on it.

Note: I am a student at University of Illinois (Patel works here) and took a class created around this book. ECE 190 is still my favorite class I've taken to date.


Great book.   January 3, 2007
U. SHAHZAD
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is one of the best books I have used for a computer science course. This book is really detailed. Would really recommend getting this book and keeping it for reference.