The Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture
This is a book about computer organization and architecture. It focuses on the function and design of the various components necessary to process information digitally. We present computing systems as a series of layers, starting with low-level hardware and progressing to higher-level software, including assemblers and operating systems. These levels constitute a hierarchy of virtual machines. The study of computer organization focuses on this hierarchy and the issues involved with how we partition the levels and how each level is implemented.