tlh@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas L Hausmann) (05/05/88)
While searching for reasonable texts, another person in our dept showed me a text by Sajjan G. Shiva, _Computer Design and Architecture_, Little, Brown & Company. What (if any) experiences do people have using this text? -Tom ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Hausmann Dept. of Computer Sciences Purdue University tlh@medusa.cs.purdue.edu ...!purdue!tlh
matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) (05/06/88)
In article <3996@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> tlh@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas L Hausmann) writes: > > While searching for reasonable texts, another person in our dept > showed me a text by Sajjan G. Shiva, _Computer Design and Architecture_, > Little, Brown & Company. > > What (if any) experiences do people have using this text? > > -Tom I've used Shiva, but only once, due to deficiencies I will explain below. On the plus side, Shiva is the first and only text I've ever seen that the students really like. Even Tanenbaum is less well-received (possibly because it's difficult for students in an *introductory* level course to fully appreciate his "levels" concept). Another plus is that some of the exercises are quite good. On the minus side, the book deals too much with implementation of CPU's, relative to what it does otherwise. There is not much at all on true "architecture" (i.e. choice of instruction sets and addressing modes), and almost nothing on memory hierarchies, which I consider a key topic. It is my understanding that Shiva is now working on a second edition, remedying these problems. Side note: In my opinion, almost architecture books are written more for the author's peers than the students. The books take an awful lot of granted, quite often writing in such a way that presumes the students already have some fairly sophisticated knowledge, in spite of the book's claim to be "introductory." Second side note: Has anyone had the following problems? Being in an EECS department, my architecture courses consist of EE students, CS students and students in a hybrid EE/CS major that we offer. I find it very difficult to motivate the EE and CS students. The EE students are too used to a course being either "lab type", in which one produces something tangible, or "math type", in which they can produce equations; thus the react well to the implementation parts of my course, but complain that these parts are not 100% of the course, i.e. they don't like the qualitative stuff such as factors entering in to choosing an instruction set/addressing modes. On the other hand, the CS majors dismiss the whole subject as "hardware", mistakenly thinking that it is irrelevant to them. Comments? Norm Matloff
dlsc1032@dlscg1.UUCP (Alan Beal) (05/06/88)
In article <3996@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, tlh@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas L Hausmann) writes: > While searching for reasonable texts, another person in our dept > showed me a text by Sajjan G. Shiva, _Computer Design and Architecture_, > Little, Brown & Company. > What (if any) experiences do people have using this text? Our class in computer architecture used this book and we found it to be full of typographical errors. Otherwise, it provided a rather basic introduction to digital circuit design. -- Alan Beal DLSC-ZBC Autovon 932-4160 Defense Logistics Services Center Commercial (616)961-4160 Battle Creek, MI 49015 FTS 552-4160 UUCP: {uunet!gould,cbosgd!osu-cis}!dsacg1!dlscg2!abeal
haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (99700000) (05/06/88)
Since nobody else has mentioned it, I used the book "Introduction to Computer ARchitecture and Organization" by Harold Lorin (Wiley, 1982). This was mostly for the students to read on their own while I gave lectures on everything under the sun. haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu haynes@ucscc.bitnet ..ucbvax!ucscc!haynes
matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) (05/07/88)
In article <3183@saturn.ucsc.edu> haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes) writes: >Since nobody else has mentioned it, I used the book "Introduction to >Computer ARchitecture and Organization" by Harold Lorin (Wiley, 1982). Very nice book! However, it is completely qualitative and philosophical. Although it might make a nice supplement, as Jim mentioned, I don't think it would work at all as a main text. E.g. in following up on what I said earlier, the EE students, who are in an "implementation mindset", wouldn't like it. Norm Matloff