Code - The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries. 

Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who’s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines.

It’s a cleverly illustrated and eminently comprehensible story and along the way, you’ll discover you’ve gained a real context for understanding today’s world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. No matter what your level of technical savvy, CODE will charm you and perhaps even awaken the technophile within.

Paperback: 400 pages

Publisher: Microsoft Press; 1 edition (October 21, 2000)

Language: English

Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 8.9 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds

Review

Charles Petzold's latest book, Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, crosses over into general-interest nonfiction from his usual programming genre. It's a carefully written, carefully researched gem that will appeal to anyone who wants to understand computer technology at its essence. Readers learn about number systems (decimal, octal, binary, and all that) through Petzold's patient (and frequently entertaining) prose and then discover the logical systems that are used to process them. There's loads of historical information too. From Louis Braille's development of his eponymous raised-dot code to Intel Corporation's release of its early microprocessors, Petzold presents stories of people trying to communicate with (and by means of) mechanical and electrical devices. It's a fascinating progression of technologies, and Petzold presents a clear statement of how they fit together.

The real value of Code is in its explanation of technologies that have been obscured for years behind fancy user interfaces and programming environments, which, in the name of rapid application development, insulate the programmer from the machine. In a section on machine language, Petzold dissects the instruction sets of the genre-defining Intel 8080 and Motorola 6800 processors. He walks the reader through the process of performing various operations with each chip, explaining which opcodes poke which values into which registers along the way. Petzold knows that the hidden language of computers exhibits real beauty. In Code, he helps readers appreciate it. - David Wall

Topics covered: Mechanical and electrical representations of words and numbers, number systems, logic gates, performing mathematical operations with logic gates, microprocessors, machine code, memory and programming languages. - This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Although I only use computers to complete the necessary tasks that require their use, I have always had the desire to learn how computers work. I have read many books but I dropped them after the first 10 pages. CODE is a book that I bought as part of my last attempt to learn how computers work. This is a fantastic book written by a fantastic writer and teacher. Knowing things for yourself is one thing. Knowing how to convey the information to others is a talent and that talent is excessive in the author. I highly recommend this book not only to the lay person, but also to those who are seeking a career in the computer industry. Not to mention that this book should be a "must read" for every University's curriculum that claims to offer computer software or hardware degrees."

- Grigorios Delaportas

"A talented computer programmer I crossed paths with said, "My dad is an electrical engineer, but I never really understood electricity. After I read this book, I called him and said, 'Dad, I finally understand what you've been saying about electricity all these years.' "

Intrigued, I bought this book for myself and for my teenage son, and halfway through the first chapter I knew it was the book I've been looking for for more than a decade. Actually, it is two in one. All the promotional material about the book tells how it explains computers and technology; it does that beautifully, creatively. But more than that, it explains what my 13-year-old engineer-in-the-making son calls the "invisible magic," which is electricity.

I am an editor, and I would go on record as saying this is one of the best written, most inventively written books that I have ever come across. The night I gave it to my son (at 10 p.m.), he began devouring it. At 8 a.m. the next morning, he was already on Chapter 3, and he took it to school with him.

I give my thanks to the author for going to the effort to write the book and get it published."

- A. Reed

"One of my favorite books. I was able to take the lessons from this book and built what was called a Redstone Computer in Minecraft, and that was starting at knowing nothing about computers inner workings. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to understand how computers work on a fundamental level, without all the abstractions, at a bare metal level. It covers some earlier processors but nothing specific. It speaks more in generalities, which is good if you don't want to lock yourself down to a particular machine, but want to build your own from scratch."

- Mike Tsavage

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About the Author

Charles Petzold has been writing about Windows programming for 25 years. A Windows Pioneer Award winner, Petzold is author of the classic Programming Windows, the widely acclaimed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, Programming Windows Phone 7, and more than a dozen other books.