Book Recommendations

[Schol-R-LEA]

I would like to suggest a continuing, sticky thread be made for recommendations on books and other resources. While there are various lists already available (including the one in this site's own FAQ), they tend to get quickly out of date, as older books go out of print and newer ones are released. Also, certain reccomendations tend to get repeated over time on the board. It would make more sense to have a single collection of book titles and reviews, edited by one of the moderators, with new proposals for it added in the thread below it.

Even if this isn't feasible (given the size limits for messages and so forth), having a single location for suggesting books for the FAQ may be a wise idea.

It would come to nobody's surprise, I think, if I start off by reccommending Assembly Language Step by Step (Duntemann, Jeff; John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471375233; 2nd edition, May 24, 2000; http://www.duntemann.com/assembly.htm), a book which I have enthused over many times on this forum as being unequivocally the best introduction to assembly language programming available (and among the best beginner's programming books, period). While one might argue that a novice-level programming book is out of place in as OS FAQ, it has been a noted experience on this board that many of those on the board here have little if any experience in assembly, and many basic ASM questions have come up repeatedly; in any case, this is so worthy a title that it is a good handbook for even relatively experienced assembly programmers, as it presents some of the more cumbersome and confusing facets of the x86 platform in an unusually clear manner.

I'd also like to point out that the fourth edition of The Indispensable PC Hardware Book (Messemer, Hans-Peter; Addison-Wesley Professional; ISBN: 0-201-59616-4; December 14, 2001; http://www.aw.com/catalog/academic/prod ... 64,00.html) out since February, and addresses some of the criticisms of the previous edition on the curent listing. I'd suggest PC PhD. (Predko, Myke; C\McGraw-Hill; ISBN 0-07-134186-2; August 31, 1999; http://www.myke.com/)and the Undocumented PC, 2nd ed. (Van Gilluwe, Frank; Addison-Wesley Professional; ISBN: 0201479508; December 1996; no home page) as good adjuncts to that volume, as each covers different aspects of the x86 platform, but Messemer's book is the best of the three overall.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

[Tim]

The book I always recommend on these occasions is "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation", 2nd. ed., by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Albert S. Woodhull (couldn't find it on Amazon). It contains all the basic OS theory you need, as well as a guide to the implementation of the Minix operating system. However, it is a bit dated now; I have yet to read "Modern Operating Systems" in depth, so that may be more relevant.

I recently got a copy of "Inside Windows 2000" by David Solomon and Mark Russinovich (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 11-3308414). This is a more-or-less complete guide to the internals of the Windows 2000 operating system. It too gives an overview of OS theory, this time explaining how Windows 2000 works.

[Peter Liddle]

I would like to recommend the book MMURTL v1.0 which is a complete guide to writing your own O/S and steps through writing your own O/S. I also feel it is a much better book then Operatying Systems Design and Implementation for beginners as it layed out much more nicely and eases you into operatying system theory.

ISBN: 1-58853-000-0

[Cyber_Ghost]

I bought my copy of Operating Systems: Design and Implementation on Amazon.

Here's the link:
amazon books here

[K.J.]

This is sorta a "side note" on MMURTL V1.0(I personally think the book isn't very good, but some people seem to think it's the best one out there), you can order it from the publisher in PDF format for $20(US). You can also find the MMURTL V1.0 source code on the Dr. Dobb's Journal website.

K.J.

[Tim]

I'd agree with K.J. on the MMURTL book. Although I haven't read the whole thing, I did read the first chapter on the book's web site. It gave me the impression that this was the author's first attempt at writing an OS and that he was so pleased with himself for getting something running that he went out and wrote a book about it. Better to take advice from someone more experienced like Andy Tanenbaum.

[eliscool]

I found this online book its only around ~200 pages, but its very good, and a new version was released only a few days ago!! its about asm... http://www.drpaulcarter.com/pcasm/

PS: how come I have only just found out about the GS and FS registers (and from this book)!! geez people!!

[frank]

I've got a few books here:
(all in dutch)

"Gestructuureerde computerarchitectuur" (originally called Strucutred Computer Organisastion (its translated to dutch )
"PC Underground"
"Het BIOS boekje"

I have a few sources of other oses, got the nondot,visysops,osd documentation....

and ofcourse I have my own os source

[Tim]

I'm going to be very clear and blunt on this subject: if you haven't read this book, you have no business designing anything which any other human being will need to use. Period.

I agree with you 100% on that. Reading this book was truly enlightening.

[Pype.Clicker]

A bit of self-promotion (hope that's no spamming : for those who understand french, my thesis (describing the design of Clicker microkernel) is available online on sourceforge page

[K.J.]

These are not books, but VERY good colums on UI design:
http://www.asktog.com/menus/designMenu.html#columns

Don't make a UI without reading those first. And check out this:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.06/1.6_guis.html?pg=1

K.J.

[beyondsociety]

I am in college and the library at my school is thinking of getting some new computer books. I want to suggest some assembly language/os development books so that I can use them.

Does anybody know of any good assembly language/os development books you would recommend?

[Moshe Shaham]

i recommend the free (!!!) assembly book The art of assebmly : http://cs.smith.edu/~thiebaut/ArtOfAsse ... ofasm.html

you won't need anything else when it comes to assembly for x86

[dronkit]

I'd like to agree with "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation". Other books from AST are excellent material. The ones from William Stallings too.

Some others yet to be mentioned: "The design and implementation of 4.4BSD Operating System" from the FreeBSD crew, "The design of the Unix Operating System" from Bach and Unix Internals from Pate.

Get them wherever you want

Google groups are excellent sources too

[gtsphere]

i got this book out of my colleges library, its called:

"The Architecture of Computer Hardware and Systems Software - An information technology approach - Second Edition" by Irv Englander

The book is really good for the basic overview of many different types of arch's out there and also how to 'theorictially' design a FAT, and other types of filesystems. It gives some pseduo code, but it does help a lot for at least understanding pmode, etc.