![[Bytes Link logo]](../../../cgif/bytelnk2.gif)
The Hardware Bible, 5th Edition
by By Winn L. Rosch, Reviewed by Brian K. Lewis, Ph.D., March 2000 The Sarasota PC Monitor, Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. www.spcug.org , editor@spcug.org - June 16, 2000 at 11:54:43:
If you want to learn about the hardware in your computer, this is the book for you. Its thirteen hundred plus pages contain a wealth of information on computer hardware, past and present. Every chapter has information that traces the development of various computer components from the original IBM PC to today’s desktop computers. If you want to know the role of the BIOS, initialization routines, chipsets and other esoterica, then this is the book for you. It is not the kind of text you read from cover to cover, but it is an excellent reference work for the intermediate or advanced user. It would be heavy going for new computer users.The book comes with a CD that contains the entire text of the book in the Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF format. The CD also contains various shareware programs. Most of them have a time-limited usage. Using the Acrobat version on the CD can speed up searches of the text for specific information.
How do you describe a text like this? All I can do, in a review, is point out some areas that might be of interest to computer users. This book has twenty-six chapters and includes some topics that were a surprise to me. For example, there are more than 30 pages on the workings of digital cameras. This includes explanations of many photographic terms as they relate to the digital camera. There is also a discussion of digital versus optical zooming. The section includes information on connecting the camera to your computer. The amount of detail in this camera section is impressive. There is also another section that discusses the differences in CompactFlash and SmartMedia.
If you are interested in the differences in the various microprocessor chipsets, Pentium II/III Celeron, AMD, etc., then you have eighty plus pages covering them. Although the section on current chips does not include the AMD Athlon, it does include considerable information on its competitors. The chapter does cover the historical development of microprocessors. In addition, it includes information on circuit design, logic gates, instruction sets, registers, floating point units, pipelining and more. If you want information on advanced techniques such as branch prediction, out-of-order execution, or superscalar architecture, then you will find it here. Granted, it is not an in-depth discussion. It is a general explanation of these terms and how they relate to microprocessors.
The chapter on memory covers SIMMs, SIPPs, DIMMs, and RAMBUS memory modules. It also has information on random access, read-only and virtual memory. There is a section on memory errors, another on performance, and one on installation. As often happens with other chapters, there may be more here than you want to know. Still, you can skip sections without affecting your understanding of later material.
There are chapters on the expansion bus, chipsets, storage technology, storage interfaces (ATA vs. SCSI), hard disks, floppy disks, compact disks, and tape. You can learn more about your keyboard and mouse. The Pointing Devices chapter also includes trackballs, touchpads, joysticks and paddles. There are three chapters related to the video display and video cards or display adapters. The Audio chapter includes analog and digital information plus information on installation. The peripheral ports include USB, IEEE 1394 or Firewire and the infrared or IrDA ports. Serial and parallel ports have their own chapter. Then, finally, there are chapters on telecommunications, networking, power, and computer cases. The telecommunications chapter includes cable modems and satellite systems. Just about anything you would like to find out about your computer hardware is included in this text.
This text is quite readable and frequently includes some tongue-in-cheek remarks. Some of these aside comments, I felt were unnecessary. However, some readers might find them humorous. Overall, I didn’t find that this book lent itself to solving problems related to PC repairs. However, as a reference work that would enable a user to gain a better understanding of computer hardware, it is excellent.
The Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible, 5th Edition, $39.99, published by Que Corp., a division of Macmillan Computer Publishing, 201 W. 103rd St., Indianapolis, IN 46290. www.quecorp.com :
Copyright 2000.
![[------STRIPE-----]](../../../cgif/str1.gif){kind=small}
Site Disclaimer Suggestions? E-Mail to webmaster@noccc.org