How Computers Work (How It Works Series)

Have you ever wondered if you should buy a 3-D video card or a computer with a RISC (reduced instruction set computing) processor, only to face the bald fact that you had no idea why it could possibly be worth the $200 to $5,000 you were about to spend? If you have (and who can honestly say that he or she has never bought something just because it sounded "cool"), the fourth edition of this award-winning guide to PCs is sure to demystify the workings of your computer and its peripherals. Focusing on Wintels--particularly Windows 98 machines in this edition--White's style is a perfect balance of the technical and the miraculously simple; yet this is not a book just for beginners. Working your way through each chapter step by step, you're certain to be more knowledgeable about some facets of your desktop machine than even the "expert" who set it up for you.

White begins each section of the book with an overview of his subject (e.g., "How the Internet Works" or "Input/Output Devices") followed by a glossary of key concepts. In the subsequent chapters, his short explanations then elucidate those concepts: "As intelligent and swift as a computer's memory may be, RAM has one fatal flaw. It is a will-o'-the wisp. With few exceptions, all memory chips lose the information stored in them once you turn off the computer." The real success of the book, though, is the cut-away illustrations and the CD-ROM animations that take you inside microchips, joysticks, scanners, DVD drives, and even e-mail systems. With the accelerating pace of information technology, one only hopes that Ron White will keep updating his book for the rest of us. --Patrick O'Kelley