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Computing principles and techniques
BOOK REVIEWS
Computing Principles. and Techniques, by B. L. Vickery, Medical Physics Handbooks, No. 2, Adam Hilger Ltd., Bristol, 1979, x + 182 pp. (f11.95). This is a very strange book. It appears to be addressed to this restricted group of medical physicists, although the preface suggests a wider readership. The first two chapters are a very short exposition of some thirty pages of the elements of a computer and a set of rules and examples for connecting between Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal, which is hardly a key topic for active programs. Thereafter the whole text, save the last two chapters, is devoted to an assembler language, not quoted as related to any actual Minicomputer apart from the ‘hypothetical &bit architecture’. The author appears to produce some printout from an actual machine which he uses, based largely on a single accumulator. An actual user in a medical environment will surely need access to records of patients on a V.D.U. and will be profoundly uninterested in the underlying language of the program or’how the machine works. The only mathematical problem discussed is the evaluation of a quadratic interspersed with odd comments here and there about disc data transfer speeds and how the transfers are made, cycle stealing, double buffering, interrupts and so on, clearly the field of the ultimate constructor of the ‘machine’ and the pure computer scientist. A very brief, unexplained example in FORTRAN of the quadratic expression evaluation, again, is the single short reference to ‘high level programming’. 257 Int. J. Bio-MedicalComputing (11) (1980) 257-259 @ EisevierDJorth-Holland Scientific Publishers Ltd.
258
BOOK
REVIEWS
The final short chapter on ‘Aspects of Medical Physics Computing’ is descriptive only and suddenly involves computing graphics, not usually thought of as an assembly language adjunct. Frankly, I cannot see the value of this book. Had the microcomputer, or even a &bit minicomputer been the end-user machine, surely BASIC would have been the ONLY realistic language to be used, especially as the author refers to the major task being of numerical calculation, and modern machines in BASIC do have character string and file handling capabilities. There are several good texts available from elementary to advanced level which go into great detail on the pure computer science of number conversion between scales, and, indeed, tables of look-up between such number scales exist. There are several different assembler languages, all machine-dependent with similar but by no means identical or equivalent facilities. There is some argument indeed whether it is realistic to teach students in, or even about, assemblers today, as the pressure is all on High-test languages for practical use. The software too is for these highly developed - a defect at present for most microcomputers and some minicomputers. Two appendices give the assembler check list of instructions and the 128element AX11 character set. Appendix 3 in seven pages gives finally the complete program to evaluate the quadratic expression, a task in BASIC achieved in about 4 lines. Need one say more! J. BROWN
Computer Techniques in Cardiology, by L. D. Cady, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1979,480 pp. (SW. Fr. 106.00). This book presents a series of articles on diverse applications of computers in cardiology ranging from the more established techniques of ECG interpretation to work on cardiovascular therapeutics. There are three papers dealing with ECG interpretation and there is not a great deal of new information to be found therein. They do, however, contain some interesting observations on the benefits of introducing computerised ECG interpretation while at the same time a note of caution is entered on the differing results produced by various programs. The use of a dual processing system for 24-hour analysis is also presented in considerable detail and there is much of value in this paper to those interested in pattern recognition. The longest chapter by the editor and colleagues refers to automation in the exercise laboratory. However, this also includes details of pulmonary function testing and a description of record handling, which is also the subject of a separate chapter.
Computing Principles. and Techniques, by B. L. Vickery, Medical Physics Handbooks, No. 2, Adam Hilger Ltd., Bristol, 1979, x + 182 pp. (f11.95). This is a very strange book. It appears to be addressed to this restricted group of medical physicists, although the preface suggests a wider readership. The first two chapters are a very short exposition of some thirty pages of the elements of a computer and a set of rules and examples for connecting between Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal, which is hardly a key topic for active programs. Thereafter the whole text, save the last two chapters, is devoted to an assembler language, not quoted as related to any actual Minicomputer apart from the ‘hypothetical &bit architecture’. The author appears to produce some printout from an actual machine which he uses, based largely on a single accumulator. An actual user in a medical environment will surely need access to records of patients on a V.D.U. and will be profoundly uninterested in the underlying language of the program or’how the machine works. The only mathematical problem discussed is the evaluation of a quadratic interspersed with odd comments here and there about disc data transfer speeds and how the transfers are made, cycle stealing, double buffering, interrupts and so on, clearly the field of the ultimate constructor of the ‘machine’ and the pure computer scientist. A very brief, unexplained example in FORTRAN of the quadratic expression evaluation, again, is the single short reference to ‘high level programming’. 257 Int. J. Bio-MedicalComputing (11) (1980) 257-259 @ EisevierDJorth-Holland Scientific Publishers Ltd.
258
BOOK
REVIEWS
The final short chapter on ‘Aspects of Medical Physics Computing’ is descriptive only and suddenly involves computing graphics, not usually thought of as an assembly language adjunct. Frankly, I cannot see the value of this book. Had the microcomputer, or even a &bit minicomputer been the end-user machine, surely BASIC would have been the ONLY realistic language to be used, especially as the author refers to the major task being of numerical calculation, and modern machines in BASIC do have character string and file handling capabilities. There are several good texts available from elementary to advanced level which go into great detail on the pure computer science of number conversion between scales, and, indeed, tables of look-up between such number scales exist. There are several different assembler languages, all machine-dependent with similar but by no means identical or equivalent facilities. There is some argument indeed whether it is realistic to teach students in, or even about, assemblers today, as the pressure is all on High-test languages for practical use. The software too is for these highly developed - a defect at present for most microcomputers and some minicomputers. Two appendices give the assembler check list of instructions and the 128element AX11 character set. Appendix 3 in seven pages gives finally the complete program to evaluate the quadratic expression, a task in BASIC achieved in about 4 lines. Need one say more! J. BROWN
Computer Techniques in Cardiology, by L. D. Cady, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1979,480 pp. (SW. Fr. 106.00). This book presents a series of articles on diverse applications of computers in cardiology ranging from the more established techniques of ECG interpretation to work on cardiovascular therapeutics. There are three papers dealing with ECG interpretation and there is not a great deal of new information to be found therein. They do, however, contain some interesting observations on the benefits of introducing computerised ECG interpretation while at the same time a note of caution is entered on the differing results produced by various programs. The use of a dual processing system for 24-hour analysis is also presented in considerable detail and there is much of value in this paper to those interested in pattern recognition. The longest chapter by the editor and colleagues refers to automation in the exercise laboratory. However, this also includes details of pulmonary function testing and a description of record handling, which is also the subject of a separate chapter.