A nice text about CPU architecture

One of the topics that I've been spending more time trying to develop my knowledge of lately is coding in assembly & the underlying CPU ISA for different platforms. Robert Love recently blogged about a book on the subject (Inside the Machine) that I decided to purchase a copy of & I have to say I'm very impressed by it. The author, Jon Stokes has written an excellent text (which starts off as entry level, moving on to advanced concepts, although it won't teach you assembly) about the design & operation of CPUs & how some of the largest manufacturers (Intel & Motorola/IBM) have architectured their CPUs over the past couple of decades.

What I really like about the book is that its not just another textbook about computer hardware, its a very readable text, which doesn't cross that common boundary between a regular read & the sort of book you have to study line by line to grasp the concepts its trying to explain. Its full of lovely diagrams, with points explained well & then when they come back up later they are reemphasised so you don't feel your being tested on remembering every single concept outlined in the book at an earlier stage.

An obvious criticism of the book would be why doesn't it cover some of the other architectures such as SPARC & AMD's x86/64 ports (although apparently there's a lack of detailed architectural documentation on AMD). However, with the knowledge gained from this book it certainly makes something like the OpenSPARC project more accessible to the masses. Besides I'd rather have a concise book which I can sit down & read cover to cover anyday over a "definitive" reference that contains everything I'll ever need to know, but I don't have the time to read.

@misc{svensson2007-nice-text-about-cpu-architecture,
  author = {Conor Svensson},
  title = {{A nice text about CPU architecture}},
  year = {2007},
  month = jan,
  url = {https://conorsvensson.com/archive/blogspot/nice-text-about-cpu-architecture/}
}