Computer architecture was once considered a boring subject, but not anymore! With Moore's Law slowing to a crawl, computing hardware is experiencing a new golden age. This fun, informative book takes a look at the past to offer inspiration for the radical designs of tomorrow, tracing the development of modern systems from Stone Age tallies and Babbage's engines, to present-day cloud architectures, quantum computers, and big data parallelization. Based on author Charles Fox's award-winning university-level computer-architecture course, it covers the inner workings of the computer, from circuits to CPUs to memory and beyond. Fresh ideas are introduced using concepts from history, music, gaming and retro computing, and other interesting areas of study. In addition, practical computer exercises are provided in every chapter, such as building a CPU from digital logic, and programming machines like the Commodore 64, x86 and RISC-V. By the end, you'll learn all of the hardware requirements of a Computer Science degree, including digital logic, memory, IO, assembly programming, IoT embedded systems, and more.

About the Author
Charles Fox is an award-winning senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln, UK. With degrees from Cambridge, Oxford, and the University of Edinburgh, Fox has published over 100 research papers, which often apply embedded, smart, parallel, and neural architectures to AI and robotics. He's a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and the author of Data Science for Transport (Springer, 2018).

Reviews
"Dr Fox has cleverly crafted a captivating journey through computer architectures bringing to life what it is to be a computer. An indispensable guide from fundamental concepts to future architectures touching on everything in between. With clear concepts and examples alongside a beginner-friendly style, this book is a wonderful example of what a computer architecture textbook should be.
This belongs on every computer science student's desk, during and for many years after their studies. Not only highly recommended, but indispensable."
-Garry Clawson, PhD student, University of Cambridge

"I really enjoyed reading this textbook. That's not something I've ever written after reading a technical book, but Charles Fox writes with a style that is both conversational and invitational that kept me reading. . . . [A]ny programmer who wants a better understanding of the systems she is using would find her time well spent reading this book."
-Rik Farrow, Usenix



Book Information
ISBN 9781718502864
Author Charles Fox
Format Paperback
Page Count 560
Imprint No Starch Press,US
Publisher No Starch Press,US