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Computer organization
Andrews M., Computer Science Press, Inc., New York, NY, 1987. Type: Book (9789780881751147)
Date Reviewed: Dec 1 1987

This is one more book in the series entitled “Computer Organization and X,” where X usually ranges over “architecture,” “assembly language programming for the PDP-11 and VAX-11,” “programming,” and “hardware/software.”

Even though this book does not mention any X in the title, the author wanted to “cover a middle ground between software and hardware.” He spends many pages on PDP assembly language, PDP-11, and VAX series. He also describes software systems (RT-11, MICRO-11, VAX-VMS) related to DEC-series machines--the only system used in this book to represent various concepts. The book is intended to be used in the second course for undergraduate students, after a high-level programming course using a language such as Pascal.

Students will find a range of material related to the DEC-system, as shown in the following outline of this book:

  • Assembly language (71 pages): assembly process, programming practices, macros.

  • Operating system machine level (74 pages): What is OS?, process states, RT-11 OS, file management, memory management (paging and segmentation), VAX-VMS OS.

  • Elements of program organization (46 pages): subroutines, stacks, coroutines, reentrant code, recursion.

  • Conventional machine level (76 pages): machine language, machine instruction sets, addressing schemes, assembly language, instructions for data/program, manipulation, syntax of assembly language, MACRO-11 assembler.

  • PDP-11 and VAX (77 pages).

  • Computer structure (36 pages): a general outline on some basic concepts, such as memory, I/O, CPU, etc.

  • Register Transfer Level (50 pages): registers, counters, decoders, multiplexors, ALU, memory control unit, timing, RTL notation, micro-operation.

  • I/O organization (43 pages): basic I/O program, buffers, semaphores, interrupt handling.

This book has less-than-adequate to no coverage on the topics of Algorithms and Designs of Computer Arithmetic, Design of Control Section, and Networks, which other textbooks, meant for a similar audience, justly include.

There are 19 appendices, such as RT-11 file names, RADIX-50 character set, MACRO-11 programming style, Octal to Decimal Integer Conversion Table, and Table to Determine Forward Braches Powers of Sixteen. Unfortunately, there is no coverage of Boolean Algebra, which would have been very helpful.

This reviewer could not figure out why the first chapter contains a series of definitions of terms, such as computer, program, and memory unit, while the other chapters do not.

The book is quite readable, but there are several instances where oversimplification has been the source of confusion. Some of the comments are misleading or downright wrong. Following are a few examples of what I found to be objectionable:

  • (1) On p. 5, the author states, “A running program or a program in execution is called a process.” This is not the correct definition of a process.

  • (2) In Chapter 3, one would find references to both “assembly language” and “assembler language.”

  • (3) On p. 95, the author mentions, “For example, in Pascal, TYPE and VAR statements are called declarations.” Declarations are not statements.

  • (4) On p. 102, the author uses phrases like “data manipulation instructions,” “program movement instructions,” and “program manipulation instructions.” Instructions in the first category are indeed the instructions that manipulate data. But instructions in the second and third categories are not the instructions that “move programs” or “manipulate programs.”

  • (5) On p. 149, the author states, “Assemblers employ three types of source statements: declarative, imperative, and control. . . . 1. Declarative statements allocate space for symbols. 2. Imperative statements define actual machine language instruction in symbolic or mnemonic form.” These definitions will cause a lot of confusion with the concepts in imperative and declarative programming languages.

Finally, the book has a reasonable price tag of $37.95. A lab manual for students and a solution manual for the instructor are also available, and they cost $14.95 and $15, respectively.

Reviewer:  A. Deb Review #: CR111796
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