Great book on computer architecture for technical readers

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	• Inside the Machine: An Illustrated Introduction to Microprocessors and Computer Architecture Jon Stokes No Starch Press, 2006 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

great and numerous colour graphics that aid understanding

There are already numerous books on microprocessors. But of all those I have read, this comes across as one of the most elegant in the explanations of concepts. In part, it was greatly aided by the many colour diagrams scattered throughout the text. Colour was used to enhance the pedagogic utility of the diagrams. This vividness helps a reader grasp the underlying concepts.

To be sure, many people working in the field already know the book's ideas, and learnt these from earlier texts, which typically had fewer diagrams, and those in black and white. Which meant that, in part, you were smart enough to grasp those ideas. But maybe you had to work a little harder to reach that understanding, due to a paucity of diagrams, and poorly drawn ones at that. Whereas in this book, such ideas like pipelining are eloquently accompanied by good graphics.

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OK, not great

Somewhat interesting, but gets pretty tiresome after a while. Not all that well written.

If you're really into processors, you probably know a fair amount of this already. You'll probably learn a lot of new things about the details of various Intel and PowerPC processor generations, but you'll have to go through a lot of stuff you already know as well. If you're not really into processors, or really curious, this book isn't for you.

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Excellent Introductory Overview of Microprocessors

This book provides a great introduction to microprocessor operation and design. Details and compares the development of the x86 line from the Pentium through Core 2 Duo with the PowerPC line. Highly recommended.

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Great book on computer architecture for technical readers

Let me say that I wish I could give this book 4 1/2 stars. It's just shy of 5 stars, but I couldn't place this book alongside some of my favorite 5-star books of all time. Still, I really enjoyed reading Inside the Machine -- it's a great book that will answer many questions for the devoted technical reader.

Inside the Machine benefits from several strong features. First, the book's color illustrations are a treat, nicely explaining many topics. Second, the comparative approach taken by author Jon Stokes is a powerful and enlightening educational tool. By comparing aspects of different processors (G4e as "wide and shallow" vs P4 as "narrow and deep") I learned more than reading about the processors individually. Third, the author "builds" processors feature-by-feature, starting with the hypothetical DLW-1, continuing with the DLW-2, and then showing how his constructs compare against real processors. Modern processors are very complicated, and a powerful way to learn how they work is to start simple and progress from there. Fourth, astute readers might use Inside the Machine as a simple introduction to assembly language. The book doesn't teach assembly, but it shows, instruction by instruction, how it maps to machine language (bit by bit).

A few minor aspects of Inside the Machine caused me to not give the book five stars. First, I would have liked at least some coverage of the 386 and 486, prior to the Pentium. The i386 at least seems to be the least common denominator for many Unix variants, even though some now use the Pentium for that role. Second, some of the material seemed a little unorganized. For example, a chapter on caching (ch 11) appears to have been thrown after ch 10, but doesn't seem to fit there. Elsewhere, I have to wait to ch 10 to learn about the front side bus, in the middle of a discussion of the G5. I would have also liked to have learned a little more terminology associated with motherboards and the like. Finally, each chapter lacks a summary or conclusion. A few times I felt like the chapter just ended full-stop, with no sense of what had been discussed.

I think addressing these shortcomings would make for an excellent second edition. Perhaps including an appendix with a processor summary would help. I guess if I really want more details, I can turn to Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs; the 18th edition arrives this summer. Inside the Machine is the book that will help you understand how the components of a modern microprocessor function.

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Inside the Machine or Microprocessors for the rest of us

Jon Stokes' Inside the Machine falls somewhere between Computer Science textbook and Popular Science reading. It's packed with a lot of information that is very technical, while not quite going to the technical depth of a classroom textbook. It does make heavy use of analogy to render some hard to grasp concepts a bit easier for the non CS major.

Inside the Machine is fairly dense with both content and color. Lots of information is available here with colorful diagrams and illustrations to back it up. You'll need a more than basic understanding of computers and at least a bit of programming experience under your belt to get the most out of it. With that, the average computer enthusiast can pick up this book and find themselves in possession of a clear and concise guide to basic processor theory and real processor architecture. if you are interested in how microprocessors really work and why they were developed as they were but not interested in obtaining a CS degree this book is your first, best stop.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, with a bibliography and index following. The first four chapters lead the reader through basic computing concepts, discussing how a program actually executes when it arrives at the processor and brings us through pipelined and superscalar execution, ways to increase speed and throughput of processors.

Once a basic understanding of how the microprocessor works is reached, Stokes then disects a number of popular processors that have existed in the last decade and a half. These chapters cover the Intel's Pentium and Pentium Pro, the 600. 700 and 7400 Power PC processors, Intel's P4 vs Motorola's G4, 64-bit and x86-64 processors, the G5 and IBM's PowerPC 970 and finally Intel's Pentium M, Core Duo and Core 2 Duo processors. If you do want to delve deeper into the world of microprocessors the bibliography supplied in the book is a great resource.

If anything in that last paragraph sounded really interesting to you or made you say "Oh I loved that processor!" than this book should go on your to-read list.

I was not a CS major and though I do work in IT I'm not an expert on microprocessor architecture. I knew what I needed to know about the products to do my job. When this book came along it was a real joy for me to read it. I've looked at a number of popular text books concerned with microprocessors and while reading this book won't get you a job with Intel it will certainly be a bit easier to digest and thus offer a lot more to readers like myself.

Don't expect to breeze through this if you're going to pick it up though. You should glance through it first if you have a chance. If everything you're reading in the first four chapters is causing you to say "uh huh" and "oh yeah" then you're ready for some more advanced material and won't really need this unless you're into historical data about microprocessors. If you're familiar with some of the concepts and would like a solid grounding in current architecture based on understanding popular prior models then this book is certainly for you.

For me a broad understanding of how these things worked and a bit of programming was all I needed to enjoy this book and what it has to offer. While you won't be up late a few nights glued to the page (well, okay I was up late one night. I was really digging into the differences between the P4 and the G4 and thinking "Finally, that's what all this meant" when my wife told me in no uncertain terms to shut the light out and go to bed. That's just me though.) You will find just about every page full of useful theory or practical knowledge that will increase your understanding and prepare you for the next section of the book until you find yourself reading about processors being sold right now.

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