Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective, 3 Edition

This book presents computer architecture, an often challenging subject, in a lively and practical way. The book starts with fundamental concepts and incrementally introduces more confusing topics. Strengths: 1. The book’s approach is heavily dependent on practice. There are loads of practice examples and answers to the questions provided in the book. That way, students can compare their work examples with the answers in the book. 2. Concepts in the book are explained from first principle. Detailed illustrations are given to clarify key concepts and ideas. 3. Sharpens programming skills. C Programming is used heavily in this book. For those who understand C, the codes that support discussions can easily be applied to more significant problems. Students new to C programming get an opportunity to learn C programming from the “Asides” in the book. Weaknesses: 1. Some answers to practice problems are wrong. Students could do well cross-checking those answers elsewhere. 2. Using other programming languages in addition to C ( perhaps C++ or Java) to explain concepts will come in handy. 3. This particular product has weak pages. Care should be taken when flipping pages. Overall, this book is a must-have for anyone keen on understanding the core concepts of computer architecture while shaping their programming skills. Moreover, the book arrived on time and was in good condition.

You may be tempted to save a buck and order the paperback international edition. Don't do it. The international edition is poorly printed and riddled with errors. Get the normal hardcover edition (as in the attached image). Provided you get the right edition (ISBN 9780134092669), this is a superb book. It explains in excellent detail the low-level workings of processors and operating systems. It's a well-written book that contains a lot of great material. Initially got this as a semester rental, but I'm going to pay the extra $100 and buy it. That said, not an easy read: it's required reading for one of my undergraduate classes and is a bit dense at times (chapter 2, for example, rigorously derives important properties of unsigned and signed integers). You'll also probably need some real experience using C or something before you can really grok it.

The book itself is great. Learning how to read assembly code was not on my Bingo card for 2025, but here we are anyway. This book feels like a natural followup to "Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces" - it has a large overlap with that book, but treats many of those concepts only in passing and builds on them. There are also a ton of typos, but any reader who is paying attention should be able to catch and correct these. However, this particular amazon listing has its issues. The book itself has a big red "Do not sell outside of India" warning on the top left corner (which, funny enough, was taped over in red tape - meaning, they absolutely knew this was against the rules when shipping it). Also, the diagrams in the book are supposed to be in color, which is important here because the authors make reference to the colors in the diagrams from time to time. However, in this copy, everything is black and white.

This book is very readable. It gives you a pretty comprehensive tour of modern computer system while leaving many unnecessary details out. That being said, I think there are times when the authors can be more concise (e.g. chap 2 is too "mathematical"). As I know this book is usually used for a second/third undergraduate CS course, so putting too many details in the book is kind of demanding. Doing the labs is an indispensable part of reading this book. They can be found on the book site and they are amazingly fun. Some people have pointed out that this book is too "academic." Even though that is true to some extent, I think this book is still a must-read since it is meant to give you a good foundation. Once you are done with this book it is fairly easy to pick up "industry" knowledge. EDIT (2018-05-21): After gaining more experience I'd also recommend The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles . It doesn't go as deep/wide as CSAPP, but it "connects the dots" well in the sense that the "flow" of computer operation is made clear.

I am a PhD chemist that does computational physics and engineering, where programming is a tool, so admittedly not the standard audience. I like that this book feels is very practical, but not too simple. It’s a good resource for someone who does programming, but either needs to or wishes to learn a little bit about software and hardware. My only - admittedly pedantic - complaint is that the chapters are incredibly long. It would be nice to have shorter, more digestible chapters.

I thought that purchasing the digital version of this book would be the most cost-effective option but while the book is great in that explains many aspects of Computer System's it utterly fails in its ability to handle mathematical script. As a dual masters degree holder in physics and mathematics I had a hard time putting together what the digital version of this book was attempting to write, so I would not recommend it to anyone with any issues regarding mathematical structure and logic. Many of the examples are displayed as a jumbled mess, many of the equations are not even appearing or have issues handling indices, subscripts, or superscripts. It isn't the best argument for purchasing this version of the text.

Update 2024 I bought the PHYSICAL book version and read every chapter. Really good walkthrough of lots of key computer concepts. It covers logic, IEEE floating point, really great intro to assembly on modern processors, CPU conceptual internals such as the TLB, caches, strong introduction to Linux API, … Still needed to read TLPI after this but I learned a lot of valuable information I didn’t know I didn’t know. ===== original I have not read the physical book. But the kindle version has most of the math equations typeset incorrectly. You end up having to realize things like 216 means 2^16 as the the 16 is not superscripted but it just looks like the number two hundred and sixteen. This means that you have to read the text very carefully, not trust the formulas, and figure out what it must have said in the physical book. (Update: As I read on after creating this review, I found the formulas impossible to follow. Hopefully you have substantial understanding of the material and can create all of the formulas displayed in text and breakouts yourself as the presentation is completely ambiguous.) I am only in the second chapter. Other than the type scripting issues, the context is pretty good so far. Perhaps that is why the price for a college level text book is so affordable. Check the publisher of the version you buy. These are different products shown on the same page.

Really happy with my textbook

I guess you get what you paid for bad binding, the book was damaged and was poorly packaged

La edición que me ha llegado, además de tener una calidad de impresión mediocre, ha venido deteriorada, con arrugas en la portada y esquinas dobladas

(Hardcover) Condition: Excellent. Very minor wear on the corners of the cover, pages appear brand new. Content: Excellent. Outlines structure of computer systems and why it’s useful information for optimizing programs. Topics are fairly dense but written in an easy to understand way.

This product (paperback edition) is poorly made. The cover is of poor quality, the pages are crooked and text is cropped off. It appears to be printed in India for distribution in India.

Page quality looks decent and the books content are a must if you want to learn the advance mechanics.