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The Indispensable PC Hardware Book (4th Edition)
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Author: Hans-Peter Messmer
List Price: $52.99
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0201596164
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co (14 December, 2001)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 86,019
Average Customer Rating: 4.56 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 4 out of 5
Good content, horrible translation.
Hans Messmer does a great job of arranging this vast body of knowledge into one book. I do agree w/the other reviewers on that point.However, TransScript Alba, which is the company that translated this fourth edition, should have their heads slapped for their absolutely abhorrent use of the English language. You must put your linguistic sensibilities on the stack while your brain processes the text in this book. I'm actually suprised when I find a page that doesn't have incorrect punctuation, misspelled words, or incomplete sentences. And as a final note, I disagree with the other reviewers that the old architecture info should be trashed to save room, because you can't appreciate change w/out a knowledge of history, and there are plenty of systems still using old PC technology. Until the fundamental architecture of the PC changes, every bit of information in this book is relevant.
Rating: 5 out of 5
"The One Book", for me at least, on PC Hardware
I have not been using this book so much recently, but in the past it has been absolutely invaluable. Definately the best single reference for technical specifics for the PC.There seem to be dozens if not hundreds of "upgrade your PC", "Fix your PC" and so on - nearly all light weight and I consider not worthwhile. It has tables on pretty well everything, and the information is quite dense. I have not found it to be inaccurate. Not merely factual tables (Addresses, IRQs, layouts of structure, PCI) it contains good descriptions of of what is going on. Now in its fourth edition - and I think I have owned all of them, it has stood the test of time and continues to be updated.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Almost perfect, but it's important to know of the flaws
It's an encyclopedic book, and I don't want to repeat the previous reviews, as I mostly agree with them. Just a couple of important (in my view), and unmentioned so far points to add. This book is very good for someone desiring an overview of the PC hardware, that is to learn a bit on everything. However, if you work with a particular part (which is likely -- books like that are normally bought for that precisely task, not to learn the whole thing), you will frequently find it lacking in depth and precision. Another thing: the book is huge. No, make it HUGE. It's unwieldy and impossible to handle. At the same time, a sizeable part of it deals with all goddamn processors there ever were in the i86 family! Moreover, the narration is, as it were, accumulative, that is the later chapters do not repeat info, but refer the reader back to the earlier sections dealing with earlier processors. Now, who in the world needs to know anything about 286, 386, 486 anymore?! For goodness sakes: GET RID OF THOSE CHAPTERS! Get rid of EISA! Get rid of the MCA bus! You'll need to go to some museum to find those things, in the real life all of this stuff is LONG GONE. The book needs to be re-written, that's my firm opinion, all obsolete junk removed and whatever is still applicable, moved to the later proc's chapters; start with a Pentium, trash everything else. A nice side benefit: the book will halve in size.Another serious problem: the original, clearly, is in German, so I have no beef with the authors, but! The English in the English version is appaling; a lot of stuff in the book defies comprehension. Please take note of it: if you're a newbie, you'll fry your brain. This is not a conceptual book, it's just an awful amount of purely factual information, there's nothing you can conceptualize yourself, sorta, salvaging the good info from beneath the horrific exposition. I remember struggling with it; now, rereading it I know what was actually meant in those places that I couldn't decipher at first -- because I know much more today from a million of other sources that I have dealt with since. For newbies, it'll be a torture via mumbo-jumbo. A translator of a book like that MUST know the subject matter, not only the languages, in order to render the original German text in the comprehensible English. That said, the book, as everyone agreed here, is encyclopedic and unique in its scope and diligence, so one can't go wrong in having it. Still I can't imagine this being the first or only book you have on PC hardware.
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