Pattern Classification (2nd Edition)

Book Description

The first edition, published in 1973, has become a classic reference in the field. Now with the second edition, readers will find information on key new topics such as neural networks and statistical pattern recognition, the theory of machine learning, and the theory of invariances. Also included are worked examples, comparisons between different methods, extensive graphics, expanded exercises and computer project topics.

An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available from the Wiley editorial department.

Customer Reviews:

Great product & service.......2007-09-21

This was my first purchase from amazon and I was totally impressed by the quality of the product and the service! I would buy again from the same seller and recommend others to do the same.

A Very Bad Sequel.......2007-03-09

I have now used this book 3 times for a class. While the 1st edition did a nice job of covering the material in its time, the additions to in the 2nd addition are a disaster. What the book has going for it is that it at least lists the necessary material for such a course in the table of contents. However, all the additional material is poorly explained at best. The problem sets are too few and the ones that are included are generally weak.

I have tried to use this book, but after constant student complaints and my own difficulty with the text, I have finally concluded that the problem lies with the text and not with the users.

I think an indicator of problems was the large number of errors in the first printing; large here is an understatement. Even in later additions, the 4th, the size of the errata is huge. I think this is indicative of the authors' attention to detail and seriousness in preparation. I have found similar errors and ambiguities in the associate Computer Manual.

The bottom line is that this book has seen its final appearance in our curriculum. I would use any other text, even an older one.

There is simply not enough room or time to point out all the problems with this text. Do yourself a favor if considering this text for a class. Don't bother.

The best book for the discussed field.......2007-02-05

The discussed book is very explanatory and could be students' material for academic lessons.

great book.......2007-01-16

easy to read for computer scientists who are not necessarily experts in statistics. the code in matlab is very good, and helps a lot.
this book is a good introduction to machine learning.

Very well written.......2006-02-26

I liked this book because it does a great job explaining the concepts and the reasoning behind the mathematical formulae. Other books such as "The Elements of Statistical Learning" toss the Math formulas at you and expect you to figure out the significance or the importance of 'em. The book does not shy away from Math - but does a great job presenting it.

Average customer rating:

Great Introduction to Image Processing
Simply Excellent! Fully Justifies Its Price!
Excellent book for Image Processing
OK book for 1st or 2nd year undergrads
Turn Knowledge into Code

Digital Image Processing (2nd Edition)
Rafael C. Gonzalez , and Richard E. Woods
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0201180758

Customer Reviews:

Great Introduction to Image Processing.......2007-09-16

(This review refers to the second edition of the book)

This book is a simple and very well written introduction to Image Processing. This book starts off with the very basics of the subject. In fact the introduction is a bit too long and may be boring for some. The book contains many examples from different real world applications. In most chapters this book covers only the very basic techniques, so readers who want to study more advanced concepts will have to look elsewhere. For example, this book does not cover Canny edge detection which is probably the benchmark edge detection algorithm. The chapter on wavelets was refreshing; it concentrated more on how wavelets can be used for image processing and less on the math. The chapters on enhancement, restoration and color are elementary. The chapter on compression was quite good. The book ends with a few chapters on segmentation and pattern recognition. Overall, its a very good introductory textbook well suited for senior undergraduate/first year graduate students.

Simply Excellent! Fully Justifies Its Price!.......2006-05-09

The preface of this book starts with a quote:
"When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing".
And once you start reading the book, you realize how much the book lives upto this. Everything is written clearly and importany points are stressed again and again in each topic until you become fully familiar with them. Topics are written with implementation in mind, as you can get started with writing your own code instantly.
The book makes the subject as interseting as it gets, and although some existing basic concepts of mathematics and statistics are quite helpful while reading, but you dont even have to be familiar with Digital Signal Processing to fully understand the contents.
Finally, I'd like to say that out of the few poeple that fully understand a concept, fewer have the gift to deliver their knowledge to others, and the authors of this book have that gift.

Excellent book for Image Processing.......2006-03-25

This book feeds the readers all the basic concepts of Image Processing. Very easily understandable and lucid in explanations. I would rate it one among the best EE books published so far.

OK book for 1st or 2nd year undergrads.......2006-02-14

I am giving this book 4 stars because it's quite descriptive and easy to follow. It covers some of the basic concepts behind digital image analysis and touches on the more general signal processing concepts, but it doesn't go very deep into the actual math. This may be what you want, but for me it was an assigned text for a 4th year undergrad course I took in college, and I found it inadequate. I felt like I could have written this book before I even started the class. At the same time, though, I think it would have been a great text for a more entry-level course.

If you want a text that goes in further detail and provides some math to chew on, I have to recommend the "Fundamentals of Digital Image Processing" by Anil K. Jain. It is also sold on Amazon, and I found it to be more appropriate for a 3rd year, 4th year, or Master's level course.

Turn Knowledge into Code.......2006-02-11

This is the best, most understandable image processing book I ever read. It is the only image processing book I've ever read in which I could immediately turn the concepts into code (IDL). I spent most of a Christmas vacation thinking it was a novel I couldn't put down. That's about as good as it gets for a technical book! Well done, Gentlemen.

Advanced Digital Logic Design Using VHDL, State Machines, and Synthesis for FPGA's

Average customer rating:

Not As Advanced as you would Think
using a finite state machine

Advanced Digital Logic Design Using VHDL, State Machines, and Synthesis for FPGA's
Sunggu Lee
Manufacturer: Cengage-Engineering
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0534466028

Book Description

This textbook is intended to serve as a practical guide for the design of complex digital logic circuits such as digital control circuits, network interface circuits, pipelined arithmetic units, and RISC microprocessors. It is an advanced digital logic design textbook that emphasizes the use of synthesizable VHDL code and provides numerous fully worked-out practical design examples including a Universal Serial Bus interface, a pipelined multiply-accumulate unit, and a pipelined microprocessor for the ARM THUMB architecture.

Customer Reviews:

Not As Advanced as you would Think.......2006-10-03

I purchased this book along with "Circuit Design with VHDL" by Pedroni. The Pedroni book was supposed to help me with syntax issues and general knowledge of vhdl while I wanted this book to learn some more advanced techniques. I found the two books very similar in level of difficulty. Chapter 8 on the Design of Fast Arithmetic Units and the section in Chapter 5 about designing an LCD controler are about the only advanced topics in this book that teach you how to design in VHDL. The section on implementing a RISC Thumb processor is more of an arichitecture lesson than how to implement it in VHDL on a FPGA. This book is more of an intermediate book than an advanced one. This is a good book don't get me wrong its just not as advanced as I would have liked.

using a finite state machine.......2005-06-20

Perhaps the key idea here might be the use or implementation of state machines in the design of the circuits. For the level of complexity and the number of transistors in a typical chip, you need some systematic means of disciplining the design.

While some readers might readily find other aspects of the book to be more pertinent, to me the paradigm of a finite state machine seems the most fruitful.

Introductory Techniques for 3-D Computer Vision

Average customer rating:

More of a reference book
Extra-ordinary book on Computer Vision!
Some nice intuitions
Excellent intermediate textbook on Computer Vision
Not for the beginner

Introductory Techniques for 3-D Computer Vision
Trucco , and Alessandro Verri
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0132611082

Customer Reviews:

More of a reference book.......2007-08-23

I was a bit disappointed by this book. It is written more like a reference book than something you can read through to learn the material. It is full of various equations with little in the way of "plain english" explanations. If you are VERY comfortable with vector math and looking at lots of equations, then this book may be a good reference. If you are looking for understanding basic concepts, then you will need to look elsewhere.

Extra-ordinary book on Computer Vision!.......2006-04-29

I didn't know or hear about this book till one fine morning when I went to our IIT library looking for some good book on computer vision to supplement the knowledge imparted by Horn's book. I found this book and it contained most of the concepts covered thus far in my lectures. Still I was not convinced about the credibility of this book. Somehow, I started grazing through this book in leisure hours.

To my surprise, I found that it was simply an amazing book written so skillfully on computer vision from the basics. The Math fundae in the appendix were the ones I read first. They were very concise and helped me to grasp the concepts quickly. The chapters were also based on recent literature and very much coherent and self-explanatory.

This book has the potential to become a master-piece in computer vision. One unique feature of this book is the clear explanation of Math concepts in each chapter. For it to become more user-friendly, some real application oriented problems should be added.

But, on the whole, this book is an excellent book to be read along with Horn's book to fully understand the basics of computer vision. I strongly recommend this book to any novice to computer vision with little understanding of image processing concepts.

Some nice intuitions.......2005-12-23

In my humble opinion, mathematics is best explained through intuitions which motivate the rigor. That is, a general, high level, overall understanding of a particular problem and the "theory" behind a solution must be presented before a rigorious algebraic analysis. The particular mathematics should then read like a novel. In this sense, Trucco and Verri succeed, at various parts throughout the text, but certainly fail at others. I would say 4/5th's of the text is well written, and hence the 4 star review.

Excellent intermediate textbook on Computer Vision.......2005-09-17

If you already understand image processing and the basics of computer vision, this book is a very good at concisely presenting more advanced algorithms to the reader. Also, because this book is so well organized, you can read it from beginning to end. Rest assured if you are looking at an algorithm on page 84, you will not need to skip ahead to later sections in the book to understand it. From the beginning, algorithms are named and presented in numbered steps for clarity of presentation. The book starts out with introductory material such as basic optics and the geometry of camera models. It continues with image denoising, as well as two full chapters devoted to image features and their detection. Finally, the more basic material concludes with a chapter on the mathematics of camera calibration. One aspect of vision that is often neglected in other computer vision books that is treated well here is that of motion. For those working in video processing, this might make this book a good selection. Also, the book gives one of the best discussions of eigenspaces that I have seen in print in chapter ten of the book, where the subject is recognition of 3D objects. I was able to code up the eigenfaces face recognition algorithm based almost entirely on the information found in chapter ten of this book. If you need an introduction to computer vision before tackling the more advanced material in this text, try Shapiro's book "Computer Vision" ISBN 0130307963. A good knowledge of linear algebra is necessary prior to understanding the algorithms in this book such as is found in Schaum's outline of Matrix Operations. Given the specific subject matter of this book, it would probably be an excellent choice for an engineer or scientist that is interested in computer vision as it relates to robotics.

Not for the beginner.......2005-03-22

Book uses a very analytical approach. Concepts are very poorly explained and derviations are not explained. As a text this book is well suited as a review for graduate level students. Using the word introductory in the title is very misleading. Do not recommend this book to those looking for an introduction to the world of computer vision.

Handbook of Digital Techniques for High-Speed Design: Design Examples, Signaling and Memory Technologies, Fiber Optics, Modeling, and Simulation to Ensure ... Design Series: PH Signal Integrity Library)

Average customer rating:

first of a kind
Very Good Reference for a Hardware Designer
Outstanding Resource

Handbook of Digital Techniques for High-Speed Design: Design Examples, Signaling and Memory Technologies, Fiber Optics, Modeling, and Simulation to Ensure ... Design Series: PH Signal Integrity Library)
Tom Granberg
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall PTR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 013142291X

Customer Reviews:

first of a kind.......2004-11-10

This is one of the first book that covers topics related to High Speed digital design so extensively. Well written and a good reference. A must have.

Very Good Reference for a Hardware Designer.......2004-07-20

The Book covers lot of the current and emerging technologies
for most aspects of Board Design and this is the first book of this kind I have seen so far.

Outstanding Resource.......2004-06-05

The book is a must have for anyone interested in the latest technologies, and their implementations all wrapped up in one place. I have a lot of references on my desk, but this book is one of my favorites.

Customer Reviews:

high speed circuit layout techniques.......2006-05-21

I bought this book based on a friend's recommendation seven years ago. I have used this book along with Henry Ott's book as a desk top reference for the past seven years.

Not the final word by any means, but a good introduction.......2006-05-02

Add Johnson and Graham to the list of people who can write large, highly technical books full of useful, pertinent information, and package it all in a way that's mostly very readable and which mixes just the right blend of rigorous academic structure with good old-fashioned "when all else fails, you might get away with this" hacks. This book is by no means a thorough, academic grounding in the subject matter, but it works well as an introduction for people who have some background in conventional electronics, yet little or no background in the specifics of high-speed digital design.

Considering how specialized and complex the book's subject matter is, it's surprising how well the authors manage to avoid hard math; they obviously made a conscious effort to use the most intuitive formulas possible whenever they could. There are maybe a handful of differential equations in the book, but most of the math requires no calculus, just basic algebra. The moderately math-phobic should be able to handle this book if you can understand what derivatives and integrals are.

A bit of a rant: Everybody gets so hung up on the title! Did any of the people who complain that HSDD isn't really "black magic" actually bother to even open the book? Right in the preface, the authors explain that HSDD is regarded as something of a "black magic" by engineers because it isn't taught in most college programs, but "The authors would like to dispel the popular myth that anything unusual or unexplained happens at high speeds. It's simply a matter of knowing which principles apply, and how." The title is meant to be humorous, people; lighten up! A lack of a sense of humor is a sign of an ineffective engineer.

This book really is just an introduction. You're not going to go out and design a gigahertz-level PC motherboard when you've read it through, but it'll prepare you for more advanced material like the "Advanced Black Magic" sequel, and tons of similar advanced books on the market. The book's strength is in its easy writing style and broad, concise scope. Recommended for anyone who knows basic electronics but wants to become a professional signal electronics engineer.

Mostly a very solid book.......2004-12-23

Great book. BTW, the author lists a LOT of errata on his website, enough to take over an hour to mark up my copy (5th printing). Although it's nice he documents this so well, it's a pain in the rear, so you may want to verify the edition you're buying to avoid this extra effort. On page vi, above ISBN, look for reverse sequence; example: "10 9 8 7" indicates 7th printing (cryptic, I know). Most recent printing is 15th edition (least amount of errata). The book is loaded with equations and diagrams. It would be nice to see more derivations, but at least the equations are there in the text, and in the appendix. I thought a few other reviewers were a bit harsh. The book is not perfect, but nevertheless a great resource. His second book is impressive, but more advanced; this original title is my "workhorse" book. also, check out his website (sigcon.com) for lots of articles and resources.

one of the best books around.......2004-09-02

I dont know what the other reviewers are blabbing about...being an ASIC designer myself..I felt this book was the best introduction I could get to cross-talk, signal integrity, EMC and Metastability. Been through and done that a lot of times, but still this is one of the best things around

Useful book if you need a cook book, however ...............2004-05-04

This book is useful if you want to have a long series of equations available in one place to jog your memory. But if you want to learn something useful and practical- and real-world - then perhaps you would be better off doing a web search for application notes, tutorial papers, and articles, particularly from semiconductor manufacturers, and vendors of high-performance test equipment such as Agilent, Tektronix, and others.

To take one example (page 134,) Johnson purports to describe problems associated with a wire-wrapped prototype processor board containing TTL devices operating at high edge rates ( 2 ns.) According to Johnson, the design engineers failed to realize that the circuits would ring excessively, making the board unusable. To "prove" this he posits a model consisting of a 30 ohm TTL driver, with a 2 ns rise time, a 4" length of wire with 89 nH of self inductance, and a 15pf load - a series LRC circuit. Yes, this circuit will ring wildly, but the model is totally incorrect. The TTL input is not considered, which has a relatively low input impedance in the low state since it is current operated. This circuit -effectively a parallel LRC - does not ring nearly as much, as any experienced engineer knows. As a reality check, remember that wire wrap was successfully used for years by thousand of engineers. To listen to Johnson, though, this technology is almost unusable. Wire wrap circuits do ring, but under his example, the real amount of overshoot/undershoot is well within the limits of TTL. Further, no real circuit produces textbook looking traces, so the role of experience is to learn what worst-case design means, and what is acceptable for good manufacturing yield. Lesson: real experience teaches you how to produce correct, functional models. An incorrect model will cause you grief.

Much could have been done here, to be useful, by way of analysis and of recommendation. The wire should have been modeled as part of a transmission line, not as a lumped element, which any high speed digital design engineer would know, and the idea of terminating a transmission line should have been introduced. This is standard fare. Even with the series LRC, instead of deriving the formula for critical damping, he instead says: "This approximation (reduce Q to .5) is derived from the solution to a second order linear differential equation describing an RLC low pass filter. First find the point at which the derivative of the solution passes through zero (a maximum point) and then evaluate the solution at that point."

Got that? Take the derivative of a solution you want to find? Any book on circuits will reduce this to the solution of a quadratic equation. Obfuscating something that's really elementary does not help produce genuine insight. But this is what Johnson does throughout the book.

Book Description

Make the most of iPods and iTunes with this updated guide to the latest models and enhancements. You'll learn about everything from buying music and videos, importing music, and burning CDs to setting up play lists, transferring and viewing photos, adding podcasts, maintaining battery life, and synchronizing information. Order your copy today!

Download Description

UL>

iPod is Apple's breakthrough MP3 music player that weighs less than two CDs, holds 7,500 songs, and has generated tremendous excitement

Since hitting the market in November 2001, the iPod has sold more than one million units, which equates to more than one iPod sold every minute of every day since its introduction

The iTunes music service sold more than five million tracks at ninety-nine cents apiece in its first eight weeks of service

Covers key features of iPod, iTunes, and the iTunes music store, which provides a legal way for consumers to secure downloadable music at an affordable price

Explains how to name your iPod and set preferences, connect and share your iPod, organize your digital jukebox, play music, synchronize your iPod, copy files, burn audio CDs, preview music tracks, search for and download songs from the music store, and more

Appeals to Mac veterans who are seeking more information about downloadable music, as well as to the growing population of new Macintosh and iPod users

Customer Reviews:

iPod & iTunes For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).......2007-05-27

received product in record time. Product was received as described

iPod for Dummies.......2007-05-14

As usual, this addition to the "Dummies" series is fantastic. I can make my iPod do things that I never knew were possible. The trouble shooting is a life saver!

i pod & i Tunes for Dummies.......2007-04-11

I am a first time I pod owner. My children had to teach me a lot of things to get started, but even they haven't been able to tell me all I want to know. This book has been a big help.

iPod &iTunes For Dummies.......2007-04-05

After receiving an iPod as a gift and being electronically challenged, I borrowed several books from the library on iPods. This was by far the most informative, up to date and easy to use. It's a great "go to" book .

iPod and iTunes for Dummies.......2007-04-03

The problem I was looking for wasn't answered in the book or on the Apple or Microsoft web sites. It isn't a direct instructional book. I had to fumble my way through it and trail and error was the only way I got the answers.

Logic and Computer Design Fundamentals, Third Edition

Average customer rating:

Awful
Superb
Between the two extremes
Excellent book! A "must have" to all CS and EE professionals!
Look elsewhere

Logic and Computer Design Fundamentals, Third Edition
M. Morris Mano , Charles R. Kime , and Charles Kime
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 013140539X

Book Description

Providing solid digital system design fundamentals while accomplishing a gradual, bottom-up development of these fundamentals, this book focuses on the ever-evolving applications of basic computer design concepts. Treatment of logic design, digital system design, and computer design. Ideal for self-study by engineers and computer scientists.

Customer Reviews:

Awful.......2007-01-16

If you can possibly avoid it, don't buy this book. If you can't possibly avoid it, remember to use the internet. The internet is 3000 times better at things than this book is.

Also, realize that even the problems in this book have continuous typos so if your TA grades you as wrong, check to make sure you are doing the same problem their solution book solved. I wish we could rate this book without a star.

Superb.......2006-10-10

This book is Superbly well written and comprehensible. Its is my favourite book in my Library and it has made Digital Systems (A Subject in my Course) my favourite. The book is Good... no kidding. At first when I started reading the book, I thought it was going to be like one of those books that just kept the reader on a Rocking Chair. Fortunately, I kept on reading because I had nothing better to do; as a result by the time I read two 10 pages... I got hooked.
The book is intuitive and explains lots of Techniques about Implementing Circuits.

Between the two extremes.......2006-01-04

Although I'm very sympathetic to the bad reviews of this text, having just used it in an undergrad course I recently completed, I think they unfairly target the book when the courses themselves are probably partly to blame.

Not to say that the 5-star review is perfectly accurate either. You'll probably find that the reason that review was so good was that since the author was 5-years lately graudated from his degree, he was reviewing material rather than learning it for the first time. Even a poor book would be useful for this.

But to my own opinions; I found the book fairly comprehensive, with detailed and complete explanations that could be followed with a little effort. Although it had a lot of diagrams, it was still fairly wordy, which is unfortunate in a technical text. It also didn't have any worked answers to the questions, except some online, which is difficult for a student to get to on a spur of the moment when they need them.

The other reviews are also correct when they say that many of the exercise questions didn't directly relate to any of the explanations in their chapters, but seemed to require knowledge of completely new material.

All in all, this could be a great text if it was twice the size, contained a lot more diagrams, contained at least some worked answers, and made sure that every exercise question was based on theory explanation that was actually present in the book. As it is, it is next to useless as a self-study guide.

What it remains extremely good for is a companion text to a course which includes contact with lecturers and tutors. If the head lecturer makes sure that any theory not covered in the book is covered in class, and chooses exercise questions that they know the students should be able to complete, and if the tutors are accessible for advice, then the text is extraordinarly good.

No offence to the other reviewers, but I suspect that if they hated the book that much, they were either students who preferred self-study to attending class, or their courses were badly structured.

Excellent book! A "must have" to all CS and EE professionals! .......2005-12-14

This book is the most comprehensive book ever written on digital logic and computer fundamentals. There is no other way to put it.

I graduated with a CS degree five years ago, and we used "Structured Computer Organization" by Andrew Tanenbaum for class. I feel that the negative reviews written on this book should instead apply to Tanenbaum's.

This is the book we should have used for class in the first place. Here I am five years after graduating, and, only now, after reading this book, I am beginning to fully understand how all the internals of a digital computer work and fit together.

I have no affiliation with the authors nor am I in academia to have any reason defend it. But rather, I am defending it for the wealth of information that was put in it. This is information that is paramount to every CS and EE student/professional.

I bought this book on my own, for self development, and have read most chapters. I had no trouble following the explanations. The authors give the motivation for the study right at the beginning of each chapter, so that readers/students would look ahead and anticipate where and how the concepts and techniques will be used (and where does it apply/fit within the general purpose computer). They first give an overview and then delve into it deeper. I believe that everything should be taught that way, so that people can actually learn what was taught, especially when learning how computers tick.

I have to admit, however, that some of the concepts might be a little advanced if you are just starting to learn about computers. That's why I think that if this book is used in class at some university, it should be taught in two semesters - in order to cover everything thoroughly. There is much and too good-of-information to pass up, to cover the book only partially.

Don't get discouraged when reading this book and find that you don't understand some concepts. Find another lower level explanation to it from a different source, understand it, and then return to the book again and continue. You will find out that by doing that, going through it and learning concept by concept, you will gain an enormous amount of knowledge.

Look elsewhere.......2005-11-10

If this book is required for your class, PLEASE buy a different book. This book offers little to no explanation of key topics, is very poorly written, and is hard to follow. In many cases, you will be better off simply reading Wikipedia. If you go to a school that requires this book, I would advise you to write angry letters to the people who decided to use it until they submit to your whim. By choosing this book, they have ruined an entire semester of class for you. How does that make you feel?

Average customer rating:

Perfect book for self-study
Solid introduction to basics
Good material, bad editing!
Mr. Katz -- a very fine author
Katz ROCKS!

Contemporary Logic Design (2nd Edition)
Randy H. Katz , and Gaetano Borriello
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0201308576

Customer Reviews:

Perfect book for self-study.......2006-07-29

This book came to the rescue before my exam in the introductory course on logic design at uni and helped me achieve a good grade in the exam, even though I didn't attend class most of the time. It's well written and easy to understand, even for students who aren't native English speakers.

As our professor pointed out, there are little to no mistakes in the figures and examples presented in this book (in fact, I couldn't find a single one), which makes this book perfect for self-study as you won't be wasting time trying to understand an example which then turns out to have been wrong.

The extensive exercises at the end of each chapter will help you get a deeper understanding of the subjects explained. A point that has been criticized by some is that there are no solutions included, but these can be accessed by your instructor (provided you have one) through the publisher.

Solid introduction to basics.......2005-06-08

This is a sound, competent introduction to the elements of contemporary logic design. It covers all the basics: boolean logic, gate implementations, and the elements of binary arithmetic. It talks about minimization techniques, logic delays, and some of the classic logic implementation technologies (PLAs, decoders, muxes). It gives the basics of common notation, including timing diagrams, gate-level schematics, and so on. The last few chapters discuss synchronous (clocked) design and design of state machines, including standard reduction techniques. All the basics of modern design are there. A good student will start to see the number of different ways any problem can be solved, and start to recongize that no one perspective will solve all problems, at least not well.

Asynchronous logic, based on stable states of combinational circuits with feedback, is one of the topics skipped. That's still important in the interior of flip-flops and in niche application areas, but asynchronous design certainly not in the main stream any more. Likewise, the authors skip over transistor-level design (mostly), the oddities of J-K flops, and most discussion of discrete or MSI logic. Well, that makes sense. Most logic these days is implemented in PALs (which are covered) or larger-scale devices. 7400-level devices have pretty much gone the way of relays and tubes - of historical interest, mostly. Remember that this is "Contemporary" logic, and those aren't big concerns in the daily work of most contemporary logic designers.

There are other omissions that make sense for a first-term course. Hardware description languages (e.g. Verilog or VHDL) are barely mentioned; they're critical in daily practice, but may not be useful until students have mastered this book's level. Micro-sequencers might also be a bit advanced for this presentation, despite their usefulness and their conceptual importance in later courses. More complex design examples would have helped, but would probably have started making bad assumptions about tools available to the student. Sticking to simple problems, however, may not prepare the student for systems of realistic complexity. Some of the omissions really don't do the student any favors. When logic design is so separate from other kinds of circuit design, students come away with a critical lack of understanding of how logic fits into a whole system. There's just no mention of signal integrity, drive strength, power consumption, jitter and skew, interfacing, or all the points where logic hits the rest of the world. Nothing in this book prepares a student for reading a standard spec sheet, let alone reading between its lines. I can only hope that instructors using this book make up for some of those deficiencies in supplementary material or in the lab.

The authors have chosen a range of topics to cover, and have covered it with workman-like competence. It's good as far as it goes. My only problem is that it doesn't go into the second semester, into the underlying technology (or not much), or very far into the real world.

//wiredweird

Good material, bad editing!.......2005-02-19

As far as material and explanations, the book is great. I just have no tolerance for the countless number of grammatical errors it contains. At least one on every page. Granted, we are engineering majors, but it's a university-level textbook!

Mr. Katz -- a very fine author.......2004-03-17

This book is really well written. Not only is it comprehensive, but it is written in the active tense, and addresses the reader as "you", and talks about "we", etc. This is a big plus in book writing, as too many authors were incorrectly taught that they should write extremely difficult to read texts that are impersonal and unnatural to read (thus distracting the readers from focusing on the material, and instead spending most of their energy on decoding the text).

Mr. Katz knows how to write in a style that is efficient for the reader. His book is well organized, has nice graphics, great examples with accompanying graphically laid out solutions, and great illustrations.

Whenever i look for books, i make sure they have these qualities:
1) Pictures. Face it, w/ the possible exception of the blind, humans think visually. If you can't think of it visually, you won't learn it well.
2) Clarity. Don't waste time struggling with the text. You need that energy to struggle with the MATERIAL itself.
3) Examples. You don't just want example problems where you must do 90% of the work, when the author leaves out the most important and difficult steps. You want examples that really illustrate the the topic of interest while also reinforcing previous topics that are involved in the example.

Katz' book has all of these features. It is no wonder he won the Distinguished Teacher Award. This is the finest textbook i've used in college so far.

Some reviewers have difficulty with the material itself, and perhaps unduly blamed Katz, but i believe an objective analysis of textbook writing will prove that Katz is a very fine author, and this is a very fine book.

Katz ROCKS!.......2002-08-30

Loved the book- all the way through. This was a required text at UC Berkeley College of Engineering for the 5 unit, upper division class I took there in my final semester of my senior year.

Not only was the book helpful to support the lecture notes and problem sets, it was also very helpful while I was designing one of the biggest projects I've ever done.

Book Description

Unlike books currently on the market, this book attempts to satisfy two goals: combine circuits and electronics into a single, unified treatment, and establish a strong connection with the contemporary world of digital systems. It will introduce a new way of looking not only at the treatment of circuits, but also at the treatment of introductory coursework in engineering in general.
Using the concept of ''abstraction,'' the book attempts to form a bridge between the world of physics and the world of large computer systems. In particular, it attempts to unify electrical engineering and computer science as the art of creating and exploiting successive abstractions to manage the complexity of building useful electrical systems. Computer systems are simply one type of electrical systems.

+Balances circuits theory with practical digital electronics applications.

+Illustrates concepts with real devices.

+Supports the popular circuits and electronics course on the MIT OpenCourse Ware from which professionals worldwide study this new approach.

+Written by two educators well known for their innovative teaching and research and their collaboration with industry.

Customer Reviews:

tackles a conceptual discontuity.......2005-09-13

Agarwal and Lang offer a pedagogy to tackle a serious disconnect that often arises in this field. At the low level of physics and electrical engineering, the EE student learns of basic device physics of such circuit elements as a PN diode or a MOSFET. Everything here is inherently analog. So you get I-V curves that characterise the devices, say. The book gives this good coverage.

But it also addresses the longer distance scale, where these devices are connected into a circuit for digital electronics. It is here that the abstractions of Boolean algebra take hold. Vital in letting the student have a simple conceptual model, upon which can be built the entire panoply of computer science.

The merit of this book is in the care with which it addresses this conceptual discontinuity. Now, it might be argued that there is no such discontinuity. There is a logical rigour to all this, that long predates the book. True enough. But the pedagogic reality is that the teaching of electrical engineering and of computer science are all too often two separate disciplines. One analog, one digital. The student attempting to understand both can easily get confused, through no fault of her own. Hopefully, the didactic approach of the book can mitigate this unfortunate occurrence. It is useful that a few students, at least, should have a deep understanding of a seamless transition from nanoscale physics to software.

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