This book lays out the concepts necessary to understand how a
computer works.

For reasons of clarity, the authors have deliberately chosen
examples that apply to machines from all eras, without having to
water down the contents of the book. This choice helps to show how
techniques, concepts and performances have evolved since the first
computers.

The book is divided into five parts. The first four, which are of
increasing difficulty, are the core of the book: "Elements of
a Basic Architecture", "Programming Model and
Operation", "Memory Hierarchy",
"Parallelism and Performance Enhancement". The final
part provides hints and solutions to the exercises in the book as
well as appendices. The reader may approach each part independently
based on their prior knowledge and goals.