Code

The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

by Charles Petzold

Paperback, 400 pages

English language

Published Oct. 11, 2000 by Microsoft Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-7356-1131-3

(35 reviews)

What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries.

Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who’s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines.

It’s a cleverly illustrated and eminently comprehensible story—and along the way, you’ll discover you’ve gained a real context for understanding today’s world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. No matter what your level of technical savvy, CODE will charm you—and perhaps even awaken the technophile within.

3 editions

Rito Ghosh reviewed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

Review of 'Code' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is an overall fantastic book. I will start recommending this book to others now. It is that good.

He tries to explain all the levels of a computer, and he does so efficiently and beautifully.

The only problem that I have with this book is the chapter "Two Classic Microprocessors". There wasn't much to learn. Only huge walls of text was shoved down the throat of the readers. It was unnecessarily long and descriptive in an annoying way. What was the need? The author could have just talked about these and then moved on, but he elaborated on these, quoted and explained the literature that accompanied these processors. It was very boring. That's why I reduced a star.

This book answers so many questions that you might have as a user of computing devices. You get answers to many questions reading this. Such questions bug you for a long time, but you are too reluctant to look them up.

You get clear knowledge of buses and registers, which are taught in colleges, but college education suffers from elementitis. The smaller components are never brought together for the students. This book does that job. This book describes and teaches all major and important components, and then put them together to build a whole, functioning computer. That is wonderful. This book should be read for this reason alone.

If you are interested in actually building a comluter from ground-up, check out Noam Nissan's Elements of Computing Systems. Here, you will be building a computer yourself, from scratch.

Sergey Machulskis reviewed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

Review of 'Code' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Pleasure to read. I starts from basics like Morse code and atomic structure of matter and ends with circuitry of Intel 8080 and JavaScript.

Allen reviewed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

Review of 'Code' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book is unique in that it was a very slow read, but I loved slogging through it. Even though I do a lot with computers, I long ago wrote off the idea of ever understanding the nitty gritty magic of how they work. This book explains it in a way that's possible to understand. It starts with how things like flashlights and Morse code work, and then little step by little step it builds up to how to create things like 64kb of memory for a computer.

HokieGeek reviewed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

Review of 'Code' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This was a fantastically fun and geeky read. The last few chapters are hilariously dated which is not surprising due to the age of the book, but disappointing that a book which so seamlessly tackles the history of computing dated itself so thoroughly by referring to the technology levels at the time of writing using present tense language. Glad I read this!

Bean reviewed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

Review of 'Code' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Petzold provides the clearest, most easily understood explanation of computers I've ever heard. He starts from the very BASICS - ones and zeroes, and starts with a story about flashlights that explains things in such a way that you not only understand how things work, but you understand WHY they work the way they do, and why it's the best way.

for CWRU people, the material in this book is pretty much EECS 281. If any non-computer science people are curious as to why computers work the way they do, I highly, HIGHLY recommend this book.