Best pc hardware books according to redditors
We found 67 Reddit comments discussing the best pc hardware books. We ranked the 33 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 67 Reddit comments discussing the best pc hardware books. We ranked the 33 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I recall a "computer for dummy" book "for her". I found a reference in french only https://www.amazon.fr/PC-POUR-NULLES-FRANCOISE-OTWASCHKAU/dp/2754007695
They are insisting they don't go on the complicated stuff, like networking. They focus instead on the playful stuff like internet and social network 🙄.
When i saw this book on the shelve at Wal-Mart, i told my father that it was horribly sexist. He dare to tell me that it was probably adapted for women ( my ladybrain is WTF??), but that the quality of the content was probably as good af the men's version. The men's version was a really big book and the women was a tiny one. Of course they have the same info :/
Read this.
It's indeed not easy to find such books. Depending on your needs these may also be suited:
A Retargetable C Compiler: Design and Implementation
Compiling for the .NET Common Language Runtime
Writing Compilers and Interpreters: A Software Engineering Approach
I think you're kidding, but that book basically already exists.
Here's something I just tried. It's real dumb and I really doubt it's anything, but I'll document it here anyway.
I took out everything except the lines with the books:
102 "Pink Shirt Book"
66 "Ugly Red Book"
1 "Blue Book"
15 "Green Book"
19 "Tan Book"
Four of these books can be found in the "rainbow" list, the fifth one is referenced in the movie hackers, and that movie is where the "ugly" in ugly red book comes from as well. The Pink Shirt Book is The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC.
So I added the ISBN(for the pink shirt book) or the document ID (for the rainbow books) to each line:
102 "Pink Shirt Book" 0914845462
66 "Ugly Red Book" NCSC-TG-011
1 "Blue Book" NCSC-TG-019
15 "Green Book" CSC-STD-002-85
19 "Tan Book" NCSC-TG-001
Then put all the numbers in one string ("1020914845462660111019150028519001"), and tried decoding it as base64, converting from hex, etc and got nothing. But when I removed the leading zero from the ISBN ("102914845462660111019150028519001"), it decodes from base 64 to
M8玶5]5^to94
Which to me, kind of looks like a chess move. Maybe an opening move, as M8 is a starting pawn position. The Chinese characters apparently mean "language and culture" according to google translate.
That's all I've got.
Some game development related books and articles that I went through the 90's.
These are my recommendations:
Pro C# 7: With .NET and .NET Core https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1484230175/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_suTDCbEGBZC36
Really very good. Teaches the modern fundamentals of OOP in a clear way, as well as comprehensive covering of C# and .NET features.
your link is bad and you should feel bad.
http://www.amazon.com/PCs-For-Dummies-Dan-Gookin/dp/1118197348
How often? Robert C Martin suggest 20 hours a week, minimum. To be a good developer. You do whatever you want with that information but that's his suggestion.
Personally, every day. I sit down and read about about something I'm doing at work. Currently I'm plowing through this book.
It's massive at 1k pages but well worth it. A lot of it I already know, so I'm reading a lot of things I already knew and understood. But it helped fortify those fundamentals. It's always useful to revisit old concepts in new texts to have new examples in mind. (I do a lot of support at work where I help Junior devs with different issues, so fortifying fundamentals is really important.) Also sometimes I learn about some tiny method that does some interesting thing and that's always useful.
Every book that went over what I had already read, turns out to explore some corner of the language or framework I didn't know existed. Since the libraries can be so big it's a useful endeavor to visit.
Conceptual books tend to be more "timeless", I still maintain specific technology books are good too, but you have to learn them in the moment and they're useful when the next version of something drops and there's incremental changes to the framework.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pro-ASP-NET-Core-MVC-2/dp/148423149X
I'm currently using this book. The author prefers not to use templates meaning you actually learn to read the code properly rather than just following mouse clicks.
Because he doesn't use templates he writes everything in a way that you can use Visual Studio code as well as Visual Studio. It's great if you have an older computer/laptop or plan to develop on a Mac or on Linux.
Although many C64 machines continue to work flawlessly, there is a probability that the original hardware will fail. So, when you buy a machine, make sure it actually works and that all the keys on the keyboard work well.
Eventually chips may fail. The usual suspects are the two CIA chips, the PLA chip, memory chips and perhaps even the SID (sound) and VIC (video) chips. You'll have to replace them if they fail. Note that Commodore produced cost reduced main boards towards the end of the C64's lifespan, which are not 100% the same as the ones that came before.
C64 reloaded is a C64 board you can buy which allows you to insert legacy c64 chips in a new main board.
Ultimate64 is an FPGA based 'implementation' of the original c64 hardware. Doesn't need any legacy hardware, but is a full working C64
1541Ultimate is a 1541 disk drive and tape emulator that slots into your C64 (much like the sd2iec)
Ray Carlsen is a great resource for hardware related things.
The original PSU has a tendency to fail. Failure of the PSU can fry chips in your C64. There are modern PSU's to prevent that from happening, or you can get a 'power saver' which serves the purpose of protecting your c64 from PSU failures.
Mapping the c64 Learn this and you know everything there is to know about your C64 hardware. It's a lot to take in.
Mapping the C64 the book This books is also essential, together with Commodore's "Programmer's reference guide"
Programmer's Reference Guide You need this
Welcome to the world of C64, have a nice journey.
Here's another one from the same publisher - http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Computers-2014-Shelly-Cashman/dp/1285161769/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
These ones are good - and much newer:
https://www.amazon.com/Pro-ASP-NET-Core-MVC-2/dp/148423149X/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1550791644&sr=8-6&keywords=asp.net
https://www.amazon.com/ASP-NET-Core-Action-Andrew-Lock/dp/1617294616/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1550791644&sr=8-7&keywords=asp.net
> Second, you don't have books or toolchain to make "native" software. Third, you don't even know what books or toolchain are required.
I don't know if the situation was quite as terrible as you seem to imply. There were quite a few hobbyist magazines, that back in that day went into some great depth on how to program the machines. Until the late 80's, Byte magazine even included articles describing how to build hardware, up to and including full computers and co-processor boards. There were also a large number of technical reference books commonly available at bookstores.
It's worth noting that all of these were very commonly available at mass market bookstores. (At least the bookstores I went to in Houston.)
http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-64-Programmers-Reference-Guide/dp/0672220563
http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Commodore-64C-Sheldon-Leemon/dp/0874550823/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213025886&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Atari-Ian-Chadwick/dp/0874550041/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213025986&sr=1-1
On the Apple ][, this book originally came with the machine, and covered everything from unpacking the box, to a firmware listing, to a schematic and pinouts.
http://apple2history.org/museum/books_manuals/a2refmanorig.html
Regarding toolchain availablity, Apple machines came with a BASIC that loaded on startup and a built in assembly language monitor (call -151, IIRC). On the C64, Jim Butterfield had a nice monitor that was also commonly available. IBM machines came with a complete BIOS listing and pinouts of all major ports, including the expansion slots.
And, while Google wasn't around, BBS's were around, and they tended to be more specialzed to computer hobbyists than 'the Internet', so search was less important.
Likewise, but on an Apple ][+. These were invaluable:
Apple Machine Language for Beginners
Apple Machine Language
But mostly this was absolutely required!
What’s Where in the Apple
One of my first graphics programming forays was making a raycast engine like wolfenstein that used an array of text to create a map that I hard coded into the basic file.
Same thing, used assembly for the graphics routines, mode 13h. This was before the Internet was really a thing. I used a copy of https://www.amazon.ca/Peter-Norton-Programmers-Guide-IBM/dp/0914845462 that I got from the library if I recall.
It wasn't a "game", but you could move around, and it had collision detection. No texturing, and it was not performant enough to really play.
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Machine-Language-Don-Inman/dp/0835902307/
And they do mean "machine language". They don't even get into assembly until the second half of the book. Before that, it's looking up opcodes in the back of the book and how to calculate your jumps.
If you need some help understanding components, I wrote a pretty in depth guide and have put it online for everyone to read. You can find it for free on Scribd, Amazon and iTunes.
I realize that it is quite a lengthy read, but if you pick out certain sections that you want to understand better than it can be a very useful guide. Good luck!
I found this to be a good guide to .net: Pro C# 7: With .NET and .NET Core
Compiling for the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) and Inside Microsoft .NET IL Assembler
It's a broad field, but I think "How Computers Work" by Ron White would be a great starting point to get the core concepts down:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Computers-Work-9th-White/dp/0789736136
I'm happy you want to get involved with computers, they truly are more amazing the more you learn about them. Let me know if I can help.
I can't believe nobody is referencing The C# Player's Guide. Hands down the best resource for when I was learning C# from scratch.
After, if you want to move on to web development with C#, check out Pro ASP.NET Core MVC 2.
This book: https://www.amazon.com/Pro-ASP-NET-Core-MVC-2/dp/148423149X
I used "Pro C# 5.0 and the .NET 4.5 Framework 6th Ed" to teach myself C#.
​
I'm pretty sure there are newer editions now, but the content will be mostly the same, specially at beginner levels.
Subjects like this book on computers and physics interest me A LOT. Does this mean I might like electrical engineering?
Although I like the subjects I'm horrible in math and by NO means an expert at anything beyond those casual presentations. I'm nearing college and with so many interests, I need to decide on something. I love cyberpunk and what you've said sounds great I'm just worried about the math..I don't mean to hijack but I didn't want to start a new post on "cyberpunk careers".
>How valuable is an Oracle cert?
No more than any other online course from a respected institution such as google, say: https://cloud.google.com/training/free-labs/ or one of the online courses available at MIT/Stanford.
>What else should I look into to boost my repertoire?
See if your university has any business partnerships you could do a 2-3 month project for. I worked with one of the university's here in the UK as part of a business/university partnership and that gives the students real world experience and us some free work. Win-win if the project is completed.
Sorry - mostly UK (amazon) links :)
TDD - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Growing-Object-Oriented-Software-Guided-Signature/dp/0321503627/ref=sr_1_1, Video by Trisha Gee whos fairly well known for speaking on this stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDFI19lj4OM (some very handy shortcut keys in the video and a good outline of some of the tools available to you).
Clean Code - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882 (by "Uncle Bob")
Design patterns - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Freeman/dp/0596007124/ref=sr_1_1
Learn to use shortcuts in Intelli J to speed up your ability to generate/refactor code: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Getting-started-IntelliJ-Hudson-Assumpção/dp/1849699615/ref=sr_1_1
Also Jetbrains does good newsletters (curated by the same lady that made the video above under TDD) sign up to stay up to date with interesting/relevant blogs/articles/industry news https://www.jetbrains.com/resources/newsletters/
Github - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Version-Control-Git-collaborative-development/dp/1449316387/ref=sr_1_4
Bash Commands - https://nikgrozev.com/2016/05/22/shell-cheatsheet-part-1-common-bash-scripting-tmux/
XP/Scrum/Kanban development process - https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/xp/ the way we work
Trusted developer blog on various engineering topics https://martinfowler.com/
Interview Prep https://www.hiredintech.com/courses
Hint: the above books are likely to be available at any academic library. If not, request them. you likely only need to read 33-50% of them and you'll be golden. I imagine you can likely get hold of electronic versions of these books as well.
The best thing you can do to prepare yourself is to start practising developing projects... get them up on github. it could be a website, a desktop application/game/tool, a demo of sorting algorithms, a web service... literally anything. Fork others' projects, code a feature request and create a pull request back to the original repository/codebase on github. Just build something rather than nothing. Anyone can do the latter. There's so much more opportunity now that we have github available. Think of any thing you might be interested in working on and someone, somewhere has likely already got a project underway in that area, and you're free to submit a pull request to their repository at the click of a button. This wasn't really possible 10-15 yrs ago.
The simple answer is there's so much to know, you just have to find what your interests/passions are and follow those as much as possible.
No matter how good you are at what you do today, the tools will be different tomorrow and may even depend on the industry you enter: AI, web services, blockchain, computer vision, robotics? The list is long and each one requires you to be highly trained (over many years) before you're considered any good at it.
Just try to learn what you can. Find something that genuinely interests you and study it until you become a trusted authority on the subject, or you find something you're more interested in instead.
If you have any ideas for the type of area you might be interested in put them up here and perhaps someone can point you to a relevant project?
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Howard_H._Aiken "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
This would be the updated version of that book (as long as you are OK focusing on Core). Adam does a good job introducing ASP.NET, but he also covers a broad spectrum of cross cutting concerns and OOP concepts. I would highly recommend his books for anyone new that wants to go down an MVC path.
I love books with exercises so i can recommend you Beginning C# programming with visual studio 2017. At the end of every chapter it has a "Try yourself" section with challenges and quizzes, also trough the entire book you are deploying a solitaire app with WPF, very good looking app.
Another book i really liked was Pro C# 7: With .Net and .NET Core, it's explained very good and covers many topics about .NET not only C#. One of the best books to learn the language and the framework. But the exercises it contains are just to illustrate the concepts. Anyways it worked well for me being a mid level programmer (Not a book for beginners).
Head First C# its outdated for me, tried it but got confused and bored.
But i will recommend you compliment with some good C# tutorials as there are many good channels to learn C#. Some examples area:
DerekBanashas a very good C# playlist for beginners.
IAmTimCorey for advanced topics and best practices.
Brackeys for videogame development.
And last Programming with mosh which i think is a very good C# teacher.
I hope this resources can help you!
If you prefer reading a book, try
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EIHZWO0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_taa_XhCpDbRDQX44M
Touch nothing and read something like this plz
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119041775/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_1119041775
https://www.amazon.com/Pro-NET-Core-Andrew-Troelsen/dp/1484230175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525721729&sr=8-1&keywords=c%23+pro
I've read the entire thing cover to cover. Great resource for learning C# and .NET in my opinion.
You could get this book I have it and it explains what you're asking.
>Not my fault you don't understand basic definitions.
I've been programming since 1980. That was the year I wrote my first sprite editor. The next year, when I was eleven, I was working with a custom memcopy routine that I wrote in assembly language, then called machine language. My parents wouldn't buy me an assembler because it cost $150 or so, so I acquired this book, learned 6502 machine language, and taught myself.
How about you?
You're sitting there at the other end of the line telling me what's what about graphics.
>Even if you can use textures in a 2d game it is not all that common.
You're someone who doesn't know what he's talking about, telling someone who does know what he's talking about how it is.
No animosity or anything like that intended. You just don't know what you're talking about, and you've been mis-educated into believing that every opinion has equal merit. It's indeed not your fault.
I wish you a good day and the best of luck with whatever project you're working on.
Did I mention that I wrote my own assembler 30 years ago?
I wrote parts of it in assembler. How did I do that, you ask, with no assembler? Well, by writing it on paper and manually translating the opcodes into hex from a table. 30 years later I still remember some of the hex values of the opcodes. A lot of people did this and it was actually more common than it sounds.
Before my sprite editor, I had to make sprites by filling them in on 8x8 squares on graph paper. Then translating the bit patterns into octal, or I should say hex. This was how it was done back then.
You kids seriously have no clue how easy you have things. Seriously.
Is This a good book? I already have it, but I am not sure if/how it relates to getting the A+
This book is amazing. I'm a programmer and system administrator who has been working with computers his entire life, but I learned something after reading this for five minutes.
https://www.amazon.com/Peter-Norton-Programmers-Guide-IBM/dp/0914845462
Alternatively, blow $30 on this book, and learn how to do it yourself
If you decide to pursue computers and its related fields such as IT, networking, software developing, computer forensics, and system administration, you are going to need some general knowledge in computers. Here are my personal book recommendations for the absolute beginner looking to create a foundation in IT. I know some of these books are are outdated but the concepts are still there. Good luck.
How to use the Windows Command Line (Ignore XP, can still be done in Windows 10)
Windows XP Command Line
A broad introduction to computer technologies
Discovering Computers
More introduction to computer concepts with pictures and diagrams
How Computers Work
Computer hardware / building a computer
A+ Guide to Hardware
Microsoft's introduction to computer networking
Microsoft Windows Networking Essentials
Computer ip addressing and subnetting
IP Addressing and Subnetting Workbook (downloads a .pdf file)
Learn basic programming concepts
Realm of Racket
Learn to program in Python
Automate the Boring Stuff
https://www.amazon.com/PCs-Dummies-Dan-Gookin/dp/1118197348
Gotcha. Thanks for that info. I went with this book.
What about this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/148423149X/ref=sxts_sxwds-puwylo_rv_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=3534076942&pd_rd_wg=rU58U&pf_rd_r=6XX2FG98ZDRHPT4Z67ZP&pf_rd_s=desktop-sx-top-slot&pf_rd_t=301&pd_rd_i=148423149X&pd_rd_w=Phw0H&pf_rd_i=ASP.NET+Pro+MVC+2&pd_rd_r=c098776a-c5f2-4a8a-b209-1433c55a484a&ie=UTF8&qid=1522906247&sr=1
Is ASP.NET Core MVC the same as ASP.NET MVC for the .NET Framework?
There is this book which basically talks about everything in C# 7, a good and deetailed book. https://www.amazon.com/Pro-NET-Core-Andrew-Troelsen/dp/1484230175
https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-2013-Introductory-Cashman-ebook/dp/B00CS7MNK8
https://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Computers-2014-Shelly-Cashman-ebook/dp/B00DHLUMP2/
this book
https://www.amazon.ca/Pro-ASP-NET-Core-MVC-2/dp/148423149X
https://www.amazon.ca/Pro-ASP-NET-MVC-Adam-Freeman/dp/1430265299
Just about to pull the trigger one of these.
I'm not going going be applying for jobs for a couple of years because of college. Should i bother with MVC 5 or try to jump straight into core.
Unfortunately sometimes people have to learn to help themselves. She needs to keep an agenda/planner for her memory.
Keep a notepad or notebook for everything she learns to keep track of.
She can get basic books for working with the Microsoft Productivity Suite.
Heck I'd even say she could take one Intro to Computers course at her local community college.
Or I can recommend the text book from a course I took, Discovering Computers
https://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Computers-2014-Shelly-Cashman/dp/1285161769
I've got a bad memory, but I'm successful because I acknowledged it was a problem and took steps to mitigate it.
One of the best resources I had was a For Dummies book that covered windows 2000/ME/XP.("PCs for dummies"new version,same guy I think) Obviously the one I read would be a bit out dated now. For Dummies tends to be pretty good, at least I never head any complaints.
Learning to fix most problems on a computer comes down to being able to google what ever it pukes at you when it has a problem. Everything else is just knowing what you want to do and usually following in others foot steps.
Programing can be fun but a structured course is probably best, barring that have a goal to make something, and take baby steps to it. I'm currently learning the unreal engine and I found out to do something I wanted I need vector math, so I'm learning that. As you progress to your end goal, you will find more things you need to learn and you build from there.
Oh! These are indeed very useful tips. Thank you for the points. I am currently learning ASP.NET Core MVC. I have been a C# developer for a few years but I have never developed Web applications with ASP and have always resorted to what I already knew (Java and PHP). My current work laptop as well as the home software ecosystem is now Apple-based and I would rather not split work and switch between operating systems. That's why I was trying to utilise VS for Mac. As of now, my aim is to learn ASP.NET, but at some point I would also need to build .DLL files and I may have to build REST APIs and host apps on Azure. I doubt if I will go back to building native/desktop apps for now. But if I will someday, I will probably start learning something like Electron.NET. So, any further tips are appreciated.
​
P.S. The book I am currently reading is Pro ASP.NET MVC 2 by Adam Freeman which looks comprehensive thus far even though the examples are built in the Windows version of Visual Studio for which he takes no blame.
Hello,
Based on the comments until now i understand that you trying to learn asp.net core 2.
When i started my journey on asp.net i started with Professional ASP.NET MVC 5 great book.
For Asp.net Core i started with: Pro ASP.NET Core MVC its a nice book for asp.net core 1.
for asp.net core 2 i would suggest the Pro ASP.NET Core MVC 2 but with a slight hesitation because asp.net core 2 at the time of the publishing was still new.
Also this MVA course could help you.
If you need more info and tutorials - courses. Comment bellow and i will try to help you find the best courses for you.
Thanks.
There's a book called "How Computers Work" - that'd be a good place to start.