Browse Books

Reviewer: William T. Neumann

This basic introduction to the inner workings of many of the systems available on most IBM-compatible personal computers covers virtually the entire spectrum of devices and interfaces available on a PC. While this breadth provides the reader with an appreciation of the capabilities of a PC, the approach suffers from a lack of depth and theory. In addition, given the pace at which the PC industry evolves, the discussions of many topics related to hardware technology and implementation languages, while accurate, are clearly dated. A number of the text's features would facilitate its use in a survey course on microprocessor technology, including an emulator package available on the Web and exercises at the end of each chapter, although no instructor's manual is mentioned. It would be best used in an introductory survey course, due to the general nature of most of the material. Due to the wide variety of topics covered, the text suffers from an understandable lack of focus and continuity. It begins with an introduction to the PC architecture and functional components. Next, the author discusses digital I/O, timers, analog-to-digital interfacing, and serial communications. Perhaps because of the relatively stable and manageable nature of serial communications, this material receives the most thorough coverage of any topic in the text, although a topic closely associated with serial communications, namely modems, is placed much later in the text. The body of the text concludes with discussions of hardware and software interrupts, mouse and keyboard interfacing, disk I/O, and interfaces for parallel printers and microprocessors. A variety of appendices presents such topics as an extended introduction to C, types of memory systems and graphic video interfaces, and tables of a variety of standards and signal connections.