Irq Book
Customer ReviewsRating: 2 out of 5
The IRQ Book: High-Octane Title, Low-Power Engine
Reading the synopsis and the reviews led me to believe that I had found a good trouble-shooting guide with detailed technical information. In reality it ended up being little more than a collection of rehashed information available almost anywhere. Granted the information is compiled so one does not have to run around finding it. In fact it reminded me of an old Peter Norton guide for the PC, structure, content and all, which was also of doubtful usefulness at the time. It also covers the same matter as Jim Aspinwall's book.The major problem with the book is that it hints at the vast knowledge and skill set that are required to be proficient at trouble-shooting, while never providing in-depth technical information. With a title such as this, I think the reader is entitled to expect strong contents. If you're an inexperienced or casual PC user, forget it. The level of the discourse is somewhere between intermediate and expert PC technician. However if you happen to be in these latter categories, chances are you already know 90% of the matter covered. The CD contains nothing of real value. We have come to expect CD's to pack lots of goodies. This one: two, one of which shouldn't even be called an application. I gave this book 2 stars because the writing is simple and to the point, with chapters logically organized. However this book falls short on delivering what sounded like promising contents. Too many books are written every year, with a density of information less than your average tea-tabletop magazine.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Good Reference Material
The IRQ book, by Kate Chase, is written as a reference guide that covers what system interrupts are and how they interact with various hardware devices. The book also covers DMA channels and I/O address ranges, and gives troubleshooting advice for several hardware related issues.Although this book is not as comprehensive as some other hardware books, it is easy to read, relatively inexpensive, and is written at a reasonable technical level. The book is becoming outdated now, but that is unavoidable in the computer world. Operating systems covered in The IRQ Book include DOS, Windows 3.x, 95, 98, and NT 4.0. The book does not cover Windows 2000 as it was written well before that software was released. The book also does not cover any other operating systems besides those previously mentioned. The book includes a CD-ROM of diagnostic software. The software is designed to test and report your computer's hardware configuration. The only reference the book makes to the software is that you can "diagnose and fix problems with the companion CD-ROM". There are no instructions or documentation for the sofware anywhere in the book besides the license agreement. The book also does not mention that the "free" software is a 14 day evaluation version. For the price of the book, the software may be a good investment. However, the software runs very close to the Hardware level, and running the software may cause system crashes. This fact is mentioned in the online documentation bundled with the software. On the bright side, the software does give you a fairly detailed report of your system configuration. The IRQ Book was written for intermediate to advanced level computer users. I would recommend this book to any individual with a basic understanding of computers, that wishes to learn more about what is going on inside their computer at the hardware level.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Wait for the next edition!
This is a book which does not, as yet, live up to its considerable promise.Much of the Author's information dealing with Winnt 4.0 seems to be based upon some version which certainly isn't the one that I have! Example: she talks about the NT Device Manager fairly frequently. Huh? No such beast in my machine! The number of times the illustrative figures do not show what they are supposed to is shocking and annoying. ( probably McGraw's fault, but that doesn't help the reader.) On the back of the book, there's a little reddish starburst which contains the extremely over-optimistic blurb: "Diagnose and fix problems fast with the companion CD-Rom!" Truly a ludicrous statement that the publisher should be ashamed of. On a positive closing note, the book does have some useful information, but only "some".If you buy it, be prepared to read carefully and warily.
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