Learning Computer Architecture with Raspberry Pi

A Masterpiece

This book was clearly written by authors who wished to convey their love of the details of how computers work from software down to the hardware level. It was obviously not written for profit, but to support the education goals of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Ever since my first involvement with programming machine language on an IBM 1620 in 1962, I have been fascinated with the interface between software and computer hardware. Each chapter starts out gently with a historical narrative about how that chapter's topic evolved from the early days of computing and proceeds right up to the very sophisticated techniques used in modern computers. It provides the details of processor pipelining, memory caching strategies, graphic acceleration, video compression, how Ethernet and wifi networking challenges are resolved, methods of digital storage, and much more. All this explained with great care providing an emphasis on details that are often ignored in other computer books. The only thing missing was a discussion of the Bluetooth interface of the Raspberry Pi 3. There were times when I failed to understand a sentence only to re-read it and find that in my haste I overlooked or misread a key word. Every word, sentence, and paragraph is important. Computer architecture has numerous acronyms and with very few exceptions, each is introduced properly and referenced in the book's detailed index. This book has been proof-read with extreme care and its content written with true expert knowledge. It is a masterpiece with 500 carefully-written pages, numerous enlightening diagrams, and costing only about $20. Read more