Code

By Charles Petzold,

Book cover of Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Book description

What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked Code as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This popular book takes a broad perspective that surveys the main physical and logical layers from which all digital devices are made.

I like the accessible writing style, aimed at lay readers, and the book’s companion website, where one can experiment interactively with many of the artifacts described in the book. The second edition includes a new section that focuses on a functional subset of Intel 8080, the microprocessor that ushered the personal computing revolution, and the instruction set used by many PCs and servers today.

This book is an awesome deep dive into the way the computer hardware and the low-level software systems of computers really work. As a programmer, this was extremely interesting to me. It was fascinating to see how computers evolved over time and how the programming we do today is built on top of so many other concepts and ideas.

This book was super fun to read and I couldn’t put it down. I like doing the exercises and thought experiments and really didn’t want the book to end. By the end of the book I felt like I really understood…

From John's list on fun for software developers.

Want books like Code?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 77 books like Code.

Browse books like Code

Book cover of Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Book cover of The Innovators
Book cover of Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,588

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in computers, computer programming, and algorithms?

Computers 29 books
Algorithms 36 books