Code
Description
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.
My Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about this book. I really enjoyed the beginning and was very entoushiastic, but it quickly became complex until I didn't understand much towards the end of the book.
Already, the aim of this book is to help you understand how a computer works. To do this, it starts slowly by explaining binary numbers, how they appear, how to transform these numbers into electrical signals via circuits and logic gates, etc... Then it moves on to explain how to build a processor, store bits, etc... The difficulty gradually increases, but not linearly, and that's the problem.
The first few chapters are easy to understand, then all of a sudden you move on to more complex electronic circuits. Even though I'd already studied electronics in engineering school, I still found some of the chapters a bit daunting. So what's in it for someone new to electronics?
This book seems to be aimed at people with a minimum knowledge of electronics, and who want to go further or see how it applies concretely in the case of a computer.
However, the book is still very interesting, and I really liked it when the author told little historical anecdotes to explain how certain technologies emerged, such as Braille or telecommunications.
In short, it's a bit strange that the chapters I found most interesting were the least technical, but in any case this book is done in such a way that not everyone will like all the chapters, since the first ones are too simple and aimed at beginners, and the last ones too complex and rather for people with more knowledge of electronics.
To Read or Not to Read
This book can be interesting whether you already have some knowledge of electronics or not, but you won't enjoy all its chapters because of the big differences in knowledge required between the first chapters and the last.