Computer Architecture and Organization

One does not undertake the task of composing a new textbook lightly. This one has taken more than a year to produce. Furthermore, it does not make the author rich. (It pays better working in a bar!) So why bother? Having moved to a computer science department from an applied physics environment, I was somewhat shocked at just how little students had been expected to learn, or even care, about the physical nature and engineering of the machines themselves. When I arrived at the University of Buckingham, courses in computer architecture were new to the computer science curriculum in most UK universities. On searching for a text suitable for students, who perceived their machines from a purely software perspective, I found two serious problems.