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Structured computer organization
Comput. Lang. Vol. 10, No. 3,4, pp. 237-238, 1985 Pergamon Press Ltd. Printed in Great Britain
BOOK
REVIEWS
(Excerpted from the Prefaces and Forewords)
Structured Computer Organization, 2nd edn. ANDREW S. TANENBAUM(Prentice--Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N J) The first edition of this book was based on the idea that a computer can be regarded as a hierarchy of levels, each one performing some well-defined function. Four levels--the microprogramming level, the conventional machine level, the operating system machine level, and the assembly language--were discussed in detail. Here, all four are treated, and a new level, the digital logical level, which is below the microprogramming level, has been added. This addition has been made because the advent of inexpensive microcomputers has made some knowledge of computer hardware in general, and digital electronics in particular, much more important than it formerly was. Since the user has much more contact with the hardware, it is correspondingly more important to have at least some basic knowledge about how computers really work. The new material attempts to provide this background. In addition, more emphasis has been placed on smaller machines and less on larger ones, in keeping with the changes that are occurring in the computer industry as a whole. Another important change is the use of Pascal to describe algorithms instead of PL/1. Pascal is not only much simpler and more elegant, but compilers for it are also available for a far greater range of machines than for PL/I.
The IBM COBOL Environment. ROBERT T. GRAUER (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N J) This book is intended for the COBOL programmer working in an OS environment and is dedicated to the premise that knowledge of COBOL alone does not yield a competent COBOL programmer. Accordingly, it contains material on JCL, procedures, utilities, VSAM, ABEND debugging, and Assembler Language Programming. All subjects are presented from the viewpoint of the COBOL programmer. The I B M C O B O L Environment offers many improvements over its predecessor The C O B O L Em, ironment: more rigorous, and substantially more complete, coverage of OS JCL; an entirely new chapter on procedures, with emphasis on the rules associated with overrides and symbolic parameters; two new chapters on Assembler, providing an overview of the language, and promoting the link between COBOL and BAL; a new chapter on VSAM organization, containing several IDCAMS examples, including the establishment of alternate indexes; expanded coverage of OS utilities to include SOFT/MERGE, the linkage-editor, IEBCOPY, and IEBUPDTE, among others; enhanced treatment of system messages to facilitate the solution of Data Management ABENDS; a substantial increase in the number of exercises and solutions.
PILOT--The Language and How to Use It. TOM CONLON (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N J) PILOT (Programmed Inquiry, Learning or Teaching) is not a "general-purpose" computer language. It is a specialist tool, designed to aid the development of Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL) software and, in particular, CAL tutorials. This book is aimed at educators from every field who want to learn the language and how to apply it. No previous computing experience is necessary. The book is divided into three sections. The first section covers the Common PILOT language, which forms the basis of most existing PILOT systems. Next, the book explores the broader aspects of CAL software design, emphasizing a planned approach to development which might be termed 237
BOOK
REVIEWS
(Excerpted from the Prefaces and Forewords)
Structured Computer Organization, 2nd edn. ANDREW S. TANENBAUM(Prentice--Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N J) The first edition of this book was based on the idea that a computer can be regarded as a hierarchy of levels, each one performing some well-defined function. Four levels--the microprogramming level, the conventional machine level, the operating system machine level, and the assembly language--were discussed in detail. Here, all four are treated, and a new level, the digital logical level, which is below the microprogramming level, has been added. This addition has been made because the advent of inexpensive microcomputers has made some knowledge of computer hardware in general, and digital electronics in particular, much more important than it formerly was. Since the user has much more contact with the hardware, it is correspondingly more important to have at least some basic knowledge about how computers really work. The new material attempts to provide this background. In addition, more emphasis has been placed on smaller machines and less on larger ones, in keeping with the changes that are occurring in the computer industry as a whole. Another important change is the use of Pascal to describe algorithms instead of PL/1. Pascal is not only much simpler and more elegant, but compilers for it are also available for a far greater range of machines than for PL/I.
The IBM COBOL Environment. ROBERT T. GRAUER (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N J) This book is intended for the COBOL programmer working in an OS environment and is dedicated to the premise that knowledge of COBOL alone does not yield a competent COBOL programmer. Accordingly, it contains material on JCL, procedures, utilities, VSAM, ABEND debugging, and Assembler Language Programming. All subjects are presented from the viewpoint of the COBOL programmer. The I B M C O B O L Environment offers many improvements over its predecessor The C O B O L Em, ironment: more rigorous, and substantially more complete, coverage of OS JCL; an entirely new chapter on procedures, with emphasis on the rules associated with overrides and symbolic parameters; two new chapters on Assembler, providing an overview of the language, and promoting the link between COBOL and BAL; a new chapter on VSAM organization, containing several IDCAMS examples, including the establishment of alternate indexes; expanded coverage of OS utilities to include SOFT/MERGE, the linkage-editor, IEBCOPY, and IEBUPDTE, among others; enhanced treatment of system messages to facilitate the solution of Data Management ABENDS; a substantial increase in the number of exercises and solutions.
PILOT--The Language and How to Use It. TOM CONLON (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N J) PILOT (Programmed Inquiry, Learning or Teaching) is not a "general-purpose" computer language. It is a specialist tool, designed to aid the development of Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL) software and, in particular, CAL tutorials. This book is aimed at educators from every field who want to learn the language and how to apply it. No previous computing experience is necessary. The book is divided into three sections. The first section covers the Common PILOT language, which forms the basis of most existing PILOT systems. Next, the book explores the broader aspects of CAL software design, emphasizing a planned approach to development which might be termed 237