Introduction to computing systems : from bits and gates to C and beyond

The reason most students do not understand their first programming language is because they are forced to memorize technical details. They do not understand the basic underpinnings. This book is based on the premise that starting with a high level programming language has its shortcomings This premise lead to Patt/Patel's "bottom-up approach" found in "Introduction To Computing. " This text covers (in order) a switch level abstraction of a MOS Transistor,Logic Gates,latches,logic structures (MUX,Decoder,Adder,gated latches),finally culminating in an implementation of memory. From there,the book moves on to the Von Neumann model of execution,then a simple computer (the LC-2),machine language programming and then assembly language programming of the LC-2,the high level language C,recursion,and finally elementary data structures. The book establishes a foundation that can easily be built upon