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The Definitive Guide to How Computers Do Math : Featuring the Virtual DIY Calculator | 
 enlarge | Authors: Clive Maxfield, Alvin Brown
Publisher: Wiley-Interscience
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $22.05
You Save: $17.90 (45%)
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Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 464247
Media: Paperback
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.5 x 1
ISBN: 0471732788
Dewey Decimal Number: 004.0151
EAN: 9780471732785
Publication Date: September 27, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
The Basics of Computer Arithmetic Made Enjoyable and Accessible-with a Special Program Included for Hands-on Learning
"The combination of this book and its associated virtual computer is fantastic! Experience over the last fifty years has shown me that there's only one way to truly understand how computers work; and that is to learn one computer and its instruction set-no matter how simple or primitive-from the ground up. Once you fully comprehend how that simple computer functions, you can easily extrapolate to more complex machines."
-Fred Hudson, retired engineer/scientist
"This book-along with the virtual DIY Calculator-is an incredibly useful teaching and learning tool. The interesting trivia nuggets keep you turning the pages to see what's next. Students will have so much fun reading the text and performing the labs that they won't even realize they are learning."
-Michael Haghighi, Chairperson of the Business and Computer Information Systems Division, Calhoun Community College, Alabama
"At last, a book that presents an innovative approach to the teaching of computer architecture. Written with authority and verve, witty, superbly illustrated, and enhanced with many laboratory exercises, this book is a must for students and teachers alike."
-Dr. Albert Koelmans, Lecturer in Computer Engineering, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and the 2003 recipient of the EASIT-Eng. Gold Award for Innovative Teaching in Computer Engineering
Packed with nuggets of information and tidbits of trivia, How Computers Do Math provides an incredibly fun and interesting introduction to the way in which computers perform their magic in general and math in particular. The accompanying CD-ROM contains a virtual computer/calculator called the DIY Calculator, and the book's step-by-step interactive laboratories guide you in the creation of a simple program to run on your DIY Calculator.
How Computers Do Math can be enjoyed by non-technical individuals; students of computer science, electronics engineering, and mathematics; and even practicing engineers. All of the illustrations and interactive laboratories featured in the book are provided on the CD-ROM for use by high school, college, and university educators as lecture notes and handouts. For online resources and more information please visit the author's website at www.DIYCalculator.com.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Entertaining and Fun intro to Computers February 28, 2006
Jack Ganssle (Baltimore, MD United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
The book is aimed at people starting out in computers; we experts know this stuff cold. But an interested 15 year old could get truly in-depth insight into the mysteries of computing from this volume.
It's a very readable book laid out with easy-on-the-eyes formatting and a plethora of clear illustrations. The illustration of a LIFO stack just booms clarity. Chapters start with relevant and often amusing quotes; one of my favorites is Lewis Carroll's "The four branches of arithmetic: ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision."
Quickly page through the book and you'll be puzzled by its organization. The first 55 pages (out of 450) comprise its ostensible meat. The rest are labs for each chapter, a series of problems the authors pose to illustrate important concepts. They nudge you through the solutions - there are no proofs left to the confused student.
The labs are very well-written accessible activities in which the authors take the reader along hand-in-hand. They're a bit insidious: work through them and the reader will become a reasonably competent assembly-language programmer, without realizing he's learning one of the more difficult aspects of programming. There's a perverse genius in covertly slipping assembly language into one's head without pain.
The authors' sure hands guide one along each lab, with descriptions and demonstrations till the code that's required is almost anticlimactic: "of *course* it must be like this!"
But how is one to do a lab? You need a computer, right? Well, sure, but the authors provide a DIY Calculator on CD, an interactive and sophisticated bit of code that runs on a PC. It sports the usual display and math functions, plus its own low-level programming language. And, it's extensible. The companion website (http://www.diycalculator.com/aboutdiy.shtml ) contains plenty of downloadable extension code, plus the calculator itself. Like open source advocates they hope the community will contribute to the set of routines.
The web site also has a fabulous background to the field of computing (http://www.diycalculator.com/cool.shtml#PhyVer ) that, if you're a computer history buff, will suck you in and surely doom the schedule of whatever product you're working on now.
Where too many computer books have a dreary chapter about number systems, "How Computers Do Math" cover the subject in an entertaining and very complete fashion. From basic binary math they go on to show how one constructs an adder out of gates. Signed, unsigned, multiplication, rounding (9 different approaches!), BCD - it's all there, and it's all extremely comprehensible.
Once again Cive does it! March 24, 2007
Kathryn L. Tate (San Francisco, CA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am a hobbyist and have found this book invaluable. I have a Computer Science background and so have no problems with the concepts. Even if you do have problems with the concepts, the Labs are a walk-through
and one can then kind of 'get it'.
Very satisfied and having fun!
Clive "Max" Maxfield's books are for everyone, even the old "engineer" December 17, 2005
Douglas L. Datwyler (UTAH)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"Max" Maxfield has a very original style that does away with "you already know this" and goes to "let's go there together AND have a lot of fun doing it". This is a MATH book, dealing in how computers do math, and adds the dimension of learning by doing, by adding a "virtual" calculator you program to do the math. It may be helpful to know some programming and some digital logic, but "Bebop to the Boolean Boogie", also by "Max", gets you there. You go from the DIY "virtual" calculator (residing on your computer) that does NOTHING, and you, with Clive and Alvin as your guides, make it do basic math. Even us "old" engineers can have a kick start to the memories of how we used to do things, and may still be doing them today. Added bonus: It is not a dry text book approach. You will have fun doing it.
Just great material for educators February 25, 2007
David Naccache (Paris, France)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm a university Professor in France and one of my courses is on 8-bit microcontroller programming.
In the past I used to use the 68HC05 as an example but for students who are not familiar with reading datasheets the investment in time was just huge. Although good and free simulators exist, these were hard for the students to find and install.
This book changed my student's life and considerably eased my life. The proposed microprocessor has all the features of a real one without the useless complexity drawbacks and heavy documentation. Students better like it than 68HC05 and there are plenty of examples that they can play with. A collection of slides for educators even avoids to have to compose your ones.
I highly recommend this as standard material for teaching microprocessor programming.
David Naccache
A great book! July 15, 2006
Johannes Hausensteiner
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Not only that it explains how a microprocessor works, you get a complete package with assembler and simulator and can start off immediately. The book is written such that the novice reader can easily and fully take on the knowledge about (low level) computer programming. Additionally there are lots of anecdotes that make you smirk or give additional background information.
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