This is a book for the PC user who would like to understand how their PCs work. It is written for the reader who is not a computer or electrical engineer but who wants enough information so that they can make intelligent buying or upgrading decisions, maximize their productivity, and become less dependent on others for help with their computer questions and problems. The book provides a thorough yet concise description of the entire IBM-type PC, including its subsystems, components, and peripherals. The book concentrates on PCs based on the Pentium and Pentium Pro class processors. The book contains easy-to-do experiments that readers can perform to actually see how things work. Understanding PC Computer Hardware can be read cover to cover or used as reference source.
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 : Overview
Chapter 2 : Bits, Bytes and Words
Chapter 3 : The PC Hierarchy
Chapter 4 : Motherboards and Buses
Chapter 5 : Input/Output
Chapter 6 : PC Supporting Systems
Chapter 7 : The Microprocessor
Chapter 8 : Memory
Chapter 9 : Keyboards
Chapter 10 : Mice
Chapter 11 : Display Monitors
Chapter 12 : Display Adaptors
Chapter 13 : Device Interfaces: Floppy, IDE and SCSI
Chapter 14 : Hard Drives I: Physical Characteristics
Chapter 15 : Hard Drives II : Logical Characteristics
Chapter 16 : Floppy Drives
Chapter 17 : The Parallel Interface
Chapter 18 : Printers
Chapter 19 : Asynchronous and Synchronous Transmission
Chapter 20 : The Serial Interface
Chapter 21 : Modems
Chapter 22 : Optical Storage
Appendix
A1 : Trying the Experiments
A2 : Cache Designs
A3 : SIMM Chip Counts
A4 : How Memory Works
A5 : Real and Protected Modes
A6 : Sector Translation
A7 : How Data is Encoded on a Disk
A8 : Intel Microprocessor Quick Reference Guide
Index
