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Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

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Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#61
post #55
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which means listings won't work on real hardware. They will. LEG is a subset of ARM. What won't work is ARM software on LEG hardware. I would recommend getting the current edition, which has replaced ARM/LEG with the industry standard RISC-V.

Does RISC-V version include GPU? I am more inclined for ARM version since that's applicable to both all current Apple hardware and school Chromebooks.

The ISA doesn't really matter (at least, not between MIPS, ARMv8, and RISC-V) when you're first diving into computer organisation. That's why one book can be sold with three different ISAs. The overarching concepts are mostly the same: you have digital logic, IEEE-754, basic assembly (add, sub, and, not, xor, load, store, shift), pipelining and hazards, caches.

Only afterwards do the differences between the ISAs come to play, when you have complex vector and ISA-specific instructions, superscalar pipelines, atomic instructions, etc.

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#62

Does anyone know/recommend the author? Sometimes I feel Packt books are not the highest quality. Happy for anyone to disagree and tell me a different impression. I was reached out by Packt a few times on LinkedIn with something like: "hey, if you want to write about stuff, let us know".

IME Packt is very poor. I had one excellent book, one okay one and a whole lot of trash. The entire brand is on my Do Not Buy list.

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#63
post #60
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Computer Organisation and Design and Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, both by Patterson and Hennessy What's the main difference between the two?

The former of the books is introductory material which is taught at the Bachelors Level while the other book is more rigours and suited as a masters/research level book.

I feel lucky then that I had to take both a comp org and comp arch course when I did my bachelors, the first course used the first book and the second course used the second book.

Our final project in the first class was to develop a software simulator in Unix for a MIPS processor and get it to run software that was created by the assembler we had to write in our system tools class.

Our final project in the last class was to develop a synthesizable Verilog implementation of a basic MIPS processor (with bonus credit for making it superscalar). It was really cool to see a computer system created by me from the ground up including an assembler, loader, and linker and using the simulator we wrote previously to check the Verilog implementation against.

Fantastic material, was a good read, and I still have my copies of both books 20 years after starting my undergrad.

Now I kind of want to implement a MIPS processor in software, write a machine monitor, assembler, loader, and linker for it and see if I can get that working on an FPGA....

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#64
post #10

Better option: Computer Organization and Design by Patterson and Hennessy, ISBN 978-0124077263. Comes in MIPS (original version now in its 5th edition), ARM and RISC-V focused flavors, covers "instructions unique to architecture X" as part of its discussion.

God this book fucking rules! Used this in school and was the only textbook I found myself just working through outside of class for my own personal enrichment and entertainment. Can't recommend it enough

Agreed. Appendix B of this book in and of itself is an incredible summary of how a computer works generally.

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#65
post #56

Does anyone know/recommend the author? Sometimes I feel Packt books are not the highest quality. Happy for anyone to disagree and tell me a different impression. I was reached out by Packt a few times on LinkedIn with something like: "hey, if you want to write about stuff, let us know".

I was an (unpaid) technical reviewer for a Packt book on Arduino back in 2012. After a couple of chapters I realized that the book made little sense and was mostly plagiarized. It took more effort and conflict than I liked to convince Packt that this was a problem and couldn't merely be fixed by editing. I definitely would not be a Packt reviewer again.

What's the incentive for donating your time in such a role? Name on the cover?

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#66

IMO, the best textbooks for computer architecture and organisation are Computer Organisation and Design and Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach , both by Patterson and Hennessy. The former book even comes in a variety of assembly languages, including MIPS, ARMv8 (or a subset, called LEGv8, heh), and RISC-V.

Also a good option for those whose main interests are on the software side is "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective" by Randal Bryant and others.

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#67

Does anyone know/recommend the author? Sometimes I feel Packt books are not the highest quality. Happy for anyone to disagree and tell me a different impression. I was reached out by Packt a few times on LinkedIn with something like: "hey, if you want to write about stuff, let us know".

> Sometimes I feel Packt books are not the highest quality.

Well, I have observed sometimes they are not the lowest quality. So on any subscription service I try to filter out Packt books if possible.

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#68

Does anyone know/recommend the author? Sometimes I feel Packt books are not the highest quality. Happy for anyone to disagree and tell me a different impression. I was reached out by Packt a few times on LinkedIn with something like: "hey, if you want to write about stuff, let us know".

Packt is hit & miss but some have decent authors and good reviews.

"Machine Learning with PyTorch and Scikit-Learn" by Sebastian Raschka et al.

"In-Memory Analytics with Apache Arrow" by Matthew Topol.

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#69

Does anyone know/recommend the author? Sometimes I feel Packt books are not the highest quality. Happy for anyone to disagree and tell me a different impression. I was reached out by Packt a few times on LinkedIn with something like: "hey, if you want to write about stuff, let us know".

I got asked to write a book by Packt as a lead author with two years experience in a junior position. This was a (badly) paid role of like 800 GBP or something. Take from that what you will...

Re: Modern Computer Architecture and Organization - Second Edition (2022)

#70
post #65
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an (unpaid) technical reviewer for a Packt book on Arduino back in 2012. After a couple of chapters I realized that the book made little sense and was mostly plagiarized. It took more effort and conflict than I liked to convince Packt that this was a problem and couldn't merely be fixed by editing. I definitely would not be a Packt reviewer again.

What's the incentive for donating your time in such a role? Name on the cover?

> What's the incentive for donating your time in such a role? Name on the cover?

Name in the book as the technical reviewer, and a copy of the physical book if it goes to print.

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