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※この商品はタブレットなど大きいディスプレイを備えた端末で読むことに適しています。また、文字だけを拡大することや、文字列のハイライト、検索、辞書の参照、引用などの機能が使用できません。CPUの仕組みをマンガでしっかり理解する !!CPU(Central Processing Unit)は人間に例えると頭脳にあたる部品で、コンピュータ全体の制御、データの計算・加工(演算)などを行う装置です。その内部は、高度に集積された電子回路で構成されています。本書は、CPUを構成する回路を理解するために必要な、算術・論理演算を、マンガと文章解説でわかりやすく解説しています。「CPUとは何か」という点からはじまり、理論演算やプログラミングについて解説、最終章では産業機器への応用や、組み込み用のプロセッサなども取り上げています。

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 27, 2014

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5 stars
41 (47%)
4 stars
34 (39%)
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10 (11%)
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
Profile Image for Ardyth.
665 reviews64 followers
April 4, 2021
I bought this on a lark from Bleak House Books in Hong Kong during one of those COVID Christmas interludes aimlessly browsing online shops for gift ideas. It seemed a cute and light idea, and our son enjoys comics... maybe it would suit?

On arrival, it became clear this is way beyond our 7yo. This is a surprisingly detailed yet comprehensible intro to how computers work at the physical, electronic level... all stuff I didn't understand, despite twelve years as a computer programmer. I guess target audience is teens and up.

Tonally light and silly, you need to enter with a bit of humor for the thin framing story which exists solely to allow dialogue... but it works! And the 101-level tech education is thorough.

This won't tell you everything you want to know about how your smartphone works, although by the end I had an inkling of the outline. It's more like an electronic computing version of a guide to simple & complex machines -- a book like that won't suddenly make entirely clear all the complexities of how frozen pizza factories work, but you'll have a much better sense of what's happening inside all the metal contraptions.

I bought two others in the series, The Manga Guide to Calculus and The Manga Guide to Physiology. Looking forward to diving into one of them... after all this on the bits and logic circuits and carry flags settles.

Highly recommend for anyone who finds high tech dizzying and also cares enough to understand the basics. Probably not suitable for anyone who already passed a college course on the topic.
Profile Image for Thom.
1,832 reviews75 followers
November 17, 2024
Covers the topic fairly well, utilizing humor. Only touched on RISC and the stack in passing.

The backstory was fun. The comics themselves were not terribly detailed, and single finger pointing was frequent. Often the story reverted to paragraphs with just a character head - this is a wordy discussion.

It felt as much like a book on assembly language as a book about microprocessors. I was expecting more about RISC and FPGA - both quite prevalent in embedded designs. The rice cooker was a good example, but it would have been nice to delve further into the design - a sample program for running the machine, for instance.

I felt similar about The Manga Guide to Calculus, which I read in 2010 and didn't review (early days on goodreads). Maybe I should try a Manga Guide for a subject I don't know much about instead :)
Profile Image for Mrinny.
30 reviews7 followers
September 5, 2019
The first Manga Guide book that I could tolerate reading. Having said that, I found this one quite a delightful read. The overexpressive characters is a taste I still wait to acquire (ahem) though in this case of hardware engineering... I know a lot of people that share the same personality trait as the expert in the book 😁.

I was compelled to try this book after reading a few other technical books that didn't quite relay the passion of designing digital electronics. This book had good reviews and did a great job of making a seemingly drab and unstimulating series of concepts into a well threaded, understanding-based yet fast paced leisure activity.

Overall a good read. Certainly recommended for the uninitiated.
2 reviews
September 24, 2018
If you think you will like this book you most likely will.
After reading this book I had a class on digital systems. I was able to fallow along with the class easier because I knew the ideas that would be hit on in making our CPU.
It touched on everything in my class except Boolean algebra.
Seeing as I got a good grade in the class and actually referenced this book in the class. I think it earned my 5 stars.
35 reviews2 followers
February 2, 2020
This is a light and humorous introduction to a rather dry and dense topic. It does a pretty good job of breaking things down for simplicity, and injecting over the top anime reactions to things. Wish there was a bit more variation on the storytelling side of things, it gets repetitive as you go on, but hey it does deliver a lot if technical info
Profile Image for Dana Robinson.
234 reviews8 followers
June 9, 2019
I highly, highly recommend this book for anyone taking their first discrete math class or hardware class in college. The explanations are very intuitive and helpful, making this a great companion to your regular textbook. It's well worth the investment of a day or two to read through it.
Profile Image for Lime Street Labrador.
209 reviews7 followers
May 2, 2023
Came across this thing as I was trying to learn the basics of semiconductors, not that I like comics. The Japanese cartoons are obnoxious, perverted, and annoying. I soon got disgusted and gave up. The Code is a much better, formal, and enjoyable read.
Profile Image for Tjsm.
3 reviews
March 16, 2025
This is a good book to read on vacation if you want an overview of the CPU. It obviously doesn't go in depth and don't have a formal structure of topics and that's what I needed .

As a cs grad myself I can say that you would definitely revise the topics in a fun way.
492 reviews27 followers
September 29, 2017
Delightful introduction for people who have been wondering how their computers actually WORK. Some may find the boy-girl byplay a distraction.
1 review
September 17, 2019
Fun to learn

Great book, this book make the subject easy to be comprehended, with some manga story added to it, which gives fun elements
Profile Image for Ola Hansson.
26 reviews
February 3, 2023
Great in many ways but the cartoon part (pretty funny!) and textbook part (pretty advanced!) fight each other more than they complement each other. Not an easy book to learn from.
Profile Image for Flávio Sousa.
82 reviews2 followers
October 6, 2023
Brilliant concept and an execution that starts strong but gets increasingly laissez faire as the it hits the steep learning curve of more advanced concepts.
Profile Image for Adam.
65 reviews
July 1, 2025
An easy way to understand how computers work from the inside, without getting too deep into equations or engineering details.
3 reviews
November 17, 2025
the databases one was good but holy fuck this is STELLAR. humanity peaked with this publication.
Profile Image for witchinthesky.
31 reviews1 follower
October 16, 2025
Викладачі за 5 роки невиразного декламування теорії на лекціях з декількох дисциплін, де структура процесора згадувалась так і не змогли вкласти в мою голову діаграму роботи процесора так, щоб я її не забула після модуля, а от манга змогла. Навіть дискретка після неї перестала бути такою відірваною від реальності.. academia could never
Profile Image for Haley.
6 reviews8 followers
October 23, 2020
It was a really good book, and I also learned a lot about computers, microchips, Ram and Rom, I/O, ect. If you needed/ wanted to learn the basics of computer parts and how they work, i'd read this book.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews

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