How Computers Work (9th Edition) (How It Works)

The book has incredible depth, explaining everything you could want to know about your computer, with each piece of hardware being given full treatment over two to five pages. (Macintosh and UNIX users should be aware, though, that the book's model is the "Wintel," a Windows PC with an Intel microprocessor.) The book is well-structured and can easily be used as a reference resource beyond the first reading. --Jennifer Buckendorff

Product Description

Having sold more than 2 million copies over its lifetime, How Computers Work is the definitive illustrated guide to the world of PCs and technology. In this new edition, you’ll find detailed information not just about every last component of hardware found inside your PC, but also in-depth explanations about home networking, the Internet, PC security, and even how cell phone networks operate. Whether you’re interested in how the latest graphics cards power today’s most demanding games or how a digital camera turns light into data, you’ll find your answers right here.

Ron White is a former executive editor and columnist for PC Computing, where he developed the visual concept behind How Computers Work. Founder of one of the

earliest PC user groups, he has been writing about computers for 25 years and is known for building wildly extreme computers.

Timothy Edward Downs is an award-winning magazine designer, illustrator, and photographer. He has directed and designed several national consumer, business, technology, and

lifestyle magazines, always infusing a sense of “how it works” into every project.

A full-color, illustrated adventure into the wonders of TECHNOLOOGY

This full-color, fully illustrated guide to the world of technology assumes nothing and explains everything. Only the accomplished Ron White and award-winning Tim Downs have the unique ability to meld descriptive text with one-of-a-kind visuals to fully explain how the electronic gear we depend on every day is made possible. In addition to all the content you’ve come to expect from prior editions, this newly revised edition includes all-new coverage of topics such as:

• How tablet PCs put the power of a PC quite literally in your hands

• How Windows Vista makes your Windows desktop translucent and makes your PC more secure

• How advances in optical disc technology such as dual-layer DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray discs continue to push the envelope

• How Apple’s new iPhone is revolutionizing what cell phones can do

• How BitTorrent technology enables anyone to share information with everyone

For a decade, How Computers Work has helped newbies understand new technology, while at the same time hackers and IT pros have treasured it for the depth of knowledge it contains. This is the perfect book about computing to capture your imagination, delight your eyes, and expand your mind, no matter what your technical level!

Category: General Computing

Covers: PCs/Hardware

User Level: Beginning–Intermediate

This new edition of How Computers Work is a beautifully illustrated and designed book that clearly and concisely explains the overall operation of computers. Readers will learn how individual computer components work, how the Windows operating system and a number of software applications work, how various audio, graphics, and video technologies work, and how a number of essential peripheral accessories work. Readers will also pick up on some helpful information about the Y2K phenomenon.

Readers are taken on a breath-taking journey through the operation of the bios, cache, chips, memory, ports, hard drives, CD's, diskettes, zip drives, graphics boards, sound boards, modems, monitors, mouses, joysticks, printers, surge protectors, back-up power supplies, digital cameras, scanners, and much more. White includes discussion of cutting-edge Pentium technologies and how Web browsers, e-mail, networks, virtual reality, multimedia, and data compression work.

This book is perfect for company employees, for students who may be using computers for the first time, and beginners starting out with just an interest in computers. This book is great for classroom use and will also make a fine gift for the first-time computer buyer! It is must reading for anyone wanting to learn more about the computing scene. The CD included with the book offers a cool multimedia interactive tour no one should miss out on!


This book woos, wows, educates, amazes and entertains!   March 5, 2000
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

Around the year 300 BCE a significant book appeared. It was titled Elements, and it contained everything the Greeks believed about geometry and mathematics. Euclid, the far-seeing author, could hardly have imagined that it would become the standard text in the field for the next two thousand years. In our time, information and technological advances move a little faster. Regretfully we acknowledge that the blazing fast desktop computer we buy at Christmas will be a tortoise by summertime, and ready for the scrapheap in two short years. To paraphrase Sam Goldwyn: Today's state-of-the-art knowledge is tomorrow's yesterday's news. That's why, every year, I treat myself to a new edition of How Computers Work. This beautiful-looking guide is one of the most compelling and information-packed computer books in print. The large and colorful illustrations (by Timothy Edward Downs and Stephen Adams) make the book a pure delight to study. Ron White's explanations, simple and direct, rise to the challenge of matching pithy words with the best in illustrative art. In 45 chapters, each one taking on a specific system of the computer, we learn the inner workings of CPUs, storage, multimedia, modems, printers, and all the other important gizmos inside and connected to, what my mother calls, "that little box that hums." Sorry, Mac users: this book is about what's known as "Wintel" computers: PCs that run Microsoft Windows and use Intel-compatible processors. Written for beginners and intermediate level users, this Millennium edition is almost one hundred pages larger than its predecessor. And it's been updated to include new technologies such as fingerprint and voice recognition, Pentium III and MMX processors, MP3 music and digital audio. Looking ahead, the book ventures to predict how the main computer components -- software, multimedia, storage, microchips, printers -- will work in the future near. If your PC has the minimum required 24 Mb RAM to run the accompanying CD-ROM, then you'll be treated to a voice-and-picture interactive tour of the PC. Watching the CD and reading the paperback, it's difficult to imagine anyone who wouldn't be wooed, wowed, educated, amazed and entertained by this exciting book.

Michael Pastore, Reviewer


Learn EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about computers.   November 20, 2000
Mr. JKW (Honolulu, Hawai'i)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

We used this as one of our textbooks for a computer repair class I took and I must say, it is VERY comprehensive about various computer technologies. It explains in great detail, with great illustrations, on how various technologies work and were developed.

Among what it talks about include: - internal hardware like the motherboard, RAM chips, hard drives, floppy drives, CD-ROM/DVD drives, - software, - networking, e-mail, the Internet, - printers, - peripherals like printers, scanners, OCR, digital cameras, etc. You will learn EXACTLY how each of these devices and technologies work. It explains very clearly and you will understand how all this works. It makes this most technical of contents understandable in plain English.

If you're into computers or want to learn more about computers, this is great place to start reading about them. If you are slightly, or even advanced, in knowledge of computers, this book is a great supplement to your knowledge base.

This book lives up to its name. It definitely tells you how computers work, and then some.

Recommended reading.


Excellent illustrations with text used only when necessary   October 24, 2003
Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
22 out of 25 found this review helpful

On occasion, I teach a course with a title having the form, "Introduction to Microcomputers", where the goal is to introduce students to some of the fundamentals of how computers work and what they are used for. Generally, the material that they find easiest to understand is that which can be illustrated by examples demonstrated on a computer. In second place are the concepts that are explained using high quality illustrations. That is where this book is extraordinary.
The author and illustrator clearly put a great deal of thought and effort into the structure and appearance of the illustrations, they are the best demonstrations of computer fundamentals that I have ever seen. The publishers are also to be commended for using high quality coloring and paper, which makes the pictures very easy on the eyes, although there are a few times when the contrast between the text and figure colors is not enough to make it easy to read the text. They quite correctly let the illustrations do as much of the explaining as possible, resorting to text only when necessary.
It is split into eight parts:

* Boot-up process.
* Microchips.
* How software works.
* Data storage.
* Input/output devices.
* Multimedia.
* How the Internet works.
* How printers work.

covering all of the material that is the normal coverage in an introduction to microcomputers course. There are also occasional segments of glossary, where the key terms in the section are defined.
This is a high quality book, the best introductory material on how computers work designed for the novice that I have ever seen. If study questions were included, I would start using it as a textbook.

This review refers to the seventh edition.


Overall, the best computer book I've ever read.   September 9, 2000
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

Ron White's best-selling and award-winning book How Computers Work Millennium Edition is nothing short of brilliant. He explains how all of this "pokerfaced" hardware works clearly and often even humorously. The book falls into the category of when something is great, or when someone is really talented, they make it look easy. It conveys how computers work in an extremely effective way with both its illustrations and text. The illustrations make one feel that they can practically understand how the component in question works at a glance, and the text seamlessly and lucidly ensures that the reader knows what's going on in the illustration. One of the best parts of the book, however, are the sections at the beginning of each chapter where Ron White introduces the next part of the computer he is going to cover. In these pages White's writings are not the sidebar explanations that accompany the illustrations -- although, as mentioned, those explanations are very good, too, and left me feeling I really did know what was going on in the illustration -- rather, at the beginning of each chapter, Ron White shows his immense talent as a writer/essayist/humorist. Not only are these sections very enjoyable to read, they also reveal how the illustrations and explanations to follow fit into the big picture of how it all works. The Millennium Edition also has a really interesting part following each section of the book where he predicts how a particular type of computer component might work in the future -- i.e., how printers, multimedia, the Internet, software, storage, microchips, input/output devices, and computers in general will work. Don't know if the predictions will be right, but they're still interesting to think about. There are also timelines in the Millennium Edition which show the evolution of the computer and many of its essential parts, such as the transistor, and there is also a good amount devoted to how software, networks, the Internet, and MP3 works in this 400+ page book, which also comes with an equally absorbing, interactive CD-ROM. After reading the book, I found that knowing how computers work has helped me in my everyday use of computers, too. Somehow, knowing how they work seems to help when dealing with them in general -- there's more of an insidious power in knowing how something works than I thought... How Computers Work has also come in handy -- too many times to recount -- as a good reference book for randomly looking up computer related items and topics in the index, so not only can I find it and know how it works, but I can find out what it is in the first place, and get a sense of how it all fits together. With all of this useful and educational information presented so well and effectively, I would even say that this book is an important contribution to society!