CODE

Easily one of the best technical books I’ve read in recent times. I had heard about this book a lot in the past, in various reading lists for technical folks, in recommended reads for an aspiring practitioner, or a hobbyist. I started reading this just over a year ago, and it truly lives up to the hype. What’s also surprising is how accessible the writing is.

I’ve been recommending this book to people, and the way I describe this book is pretty simple–“build a computer from first principles”. It is literally that, the author begins from using cups and strings as a communication medium to building a “computer” that does arithmetic and rudimentary memory management. In order to accomplish this feat, the book teaches you various subjects and topics. Petzold methodically builds the reader’s understanding through logic gates, binary numbers, relays, etc. The historical narrative that dates modern computers back to punch cards weaves seamlessly into the more technical parts of the book.

The book isn’t conventionally technical though it helps to have a background to grok it better. Though that shouldn’t deter the non-technical folks from picking this book up. This is well worth your time if you’re even remotely interested in how computers came to be.