by Roger Young (Author)
Computers are the most complex machines that have ever been created. This book will tell you how they work, and no technical knowledge is required. It explains in great detail the operation of a simple but functional computer. Although transistors are mentioned, relays are used in the example circuitry for simplicity. Did you ever wonder what a bit, a pixel, a latch, a word (of memory), a data bus, an address bus, a memory, a register, a processor, a timing diagram, a clock (of a processor), an instruction, or machine code is? Unlike most explanations of how computers work which are a lot of analogies or require a background in electrical engineering, this book will tell you precisely what each of them is and how each of them works without requiring any previous knowledge of computers, programming, or electronics. This book starts out very simple and gets more complex as it goes along, but everything is explained. The processor and memory are mainly covered.