Rating:  - Highly Recommended . . . A+++
If you want to learn to use a computer, this is not the book for you. But, if you have that burning curiosity about what make a PC tick, you could not have chosen a better book. The pictures help to visualize what is going on inside the components. I am an instructor of computers in San Diego, and I have used this book and its previous releases to help me structure my courses. They have been a magnificent supplement.
You probably won't get A+ certified with just this book, but as a general handbook on the operation of all the parts that make a comuter tick, this is the ideal book to have.
Rating:  - How Computers Work
I thought this book was exelent for teaching beginners about computers. Buy this book if you are teaching beginners about computers.
Rating: - Good book
This interesting guide showed me how microchips, software, memory, and hardware all work together in my computer with detailed (but easy-to-follow) explanations and full-color illustrations.
Of course, there is one problem with this book: it doesn't include the very latest information on recent developments in Internet technologies, multimedia sound and video, Pentium III processors, DVD drives, digital cameras, cable modems....
But i think that it was worth to buy this book and i'm waiting for next editions.
Rating: - Overall, the best computer book I've ever read.
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!
Rating: - Overall, the best computer book I've ever read.
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!
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