Peter Norton's Inside the PC

by Peter Norton and Scott H.A. Clark

With advice from the experts, a user-friendly, hands-on approach and a 16-page, full-colour insert, this book helps users better understand their PC, realise its potential, foresee possible problems,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0672306247
• ISBN13: 9780672306242
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Sams
• Length: 627 Pages
• Weight: 2.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Fabulous book. Belongs on every interested owner's bookshelf

Eighth edition:This book is fabulous. No argument possible, it's a great book. It may be better suited to some experience/interest levels than others, but by any standard it's an excellent book.It's like an "Encyclopedia of the IBM-PC," but with in depth treatment of the topics. If you've ever wondered what any acronym (PCMCIA, e.g.) means, you will find it in this book. The difference is that whereas another book may explain that acronym with only a sentence or a paragraph, Norton gives you seven pages on that and related technologies including: ATA protocol, CardBus, Card Services, CIS, flash, Media storage format, Socket Services.... Multiply that level of detail times every computer acronym you've ever wondered about and you have a valuable resource. The book is an in-depth overview to the PC. You get deeper coverage of each topic then you would normally get in a book of this type, and therein lies the main value. Still, since it's an overview, if you want to dig into a topic you are given excellent references to external sources. As expected, given Norton's roots in the disk utilities area, great depth is given to the subject of hard and floppy disks and their structure and organization. You won't find a better or deeper treatment of this material anywhere other than Norton's materials. If you want to understand the FAT, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, master boot block, master boot record, partition table, etc., this is the place.The book targets beginners to experts, and I think that's a strength. Beginners get introductory material (like what is a byte or a serial cable) explained, while experts get deep treatment (like why a 16550A UART is better than a 16550 p429). That makes this single book a great reference for anyone, especially a newbie. You may have to study some pages carefully or even look up external resources, but isn't that unavoidable?Sadly, tragically, this book is left over from an earlier, better, time of computing. The first edition of this book is from a day when you owned your own computer, not Microsoft. In that day, fun, excitement, experimentation, discovery, fascination, and programming the hardware yourself were still part of the equation. In that day it was popular to use a tool like DEBUG and poke around in the portions of memory managed by the operating system and really understand what was going on. Now, Windows is so complex and sophisticated that poking around like that is of limited usefulness. Still, tell me where are you going to get anyone to tell you about DEBUG or using I/O ports to talk to the CMOS or real-time clock these days?Also the info on understanding the hard and floppy disks, while fascinating, is of limited use in modern times. Back in the day when a 10MB hard disk cost you $1000, yes, you might take the time to use DEBUG to poke around the sectors and repair the partition table. In modern times I would not do that. I would just go to "Best Buy" and buy a new one for $50 and use the other 2 days of m

Easy technical and informational reading

Peter Norton's Inside the PC, Eighth Edition, and holds your attention better than most other technical books. It is written in a conversational style, which is easy to understand. Norton lays out his topics logically beginning with basic hardware information and becoming increasingly more complex. He uses pictures, graphs, and tables sparingly, only when necessary. Some of the most interesting sections are his Historical Asides, Notes, Technical Notes, Tips, Standards, and his own Principles, which come from his personal experience. There is a Quick Navigator inside the front cover that tells you where in the book to find general areas of information. The book has a useful glossary and a cross-referenced index. This is a good informational book at an intermediate level.

An excellent reference

Back in the 80's, many of us first learned about PC hardware from Peter Norton's excellent "Inside the IBM PC." John Goodman carries on the tradition with the 8th edition (probably 4x the size of the original). Covering this much material thoroughly, understandably, and accurately isn't a simple task. John has done a great job both in attention to detail and in making the text a pleasure to read. This book also has an excellent index (46 pages!), which you don't often find these days and which makes it easy to locate what you're looking for.

A Basic Guide to PCs

It's a well written book. It is basic because it is written for basic to advanced users!

This outstanding book is a MUST READ for everybody.

John A. Goodman, Ph.D. (Physics) has done an incredible work with this book of his. He covers all the buzz words in computers, and explains in simple reading prose how things work. It is up-to-the minute in explaining the most complex in easy understandable language. This is a must book for anyone who wants to learn from this outstanding expert about the inner workings of computers. It reads as though John was tutoring you in person. Beatifully organized in logic and presentation. Goodman is a gifted writer, and thorough.