Cordwainer Smith's telepathic Martian Scientist politely introduces himself to his American visitor as a Lotan, among other things. And, answering the obvious question, that a Lotan was an Arhat. To many people the workings of a computer, hardware or software, are equally transparent as our exiled Martian's answer. The Thompson's 'Building the Perfect PC' aims to clarify what the some of Computer industry's hardware Arhats are.
The book's chapters (Fundamentals, Choosing and Buying and building 6 types of PC) take the reader from the asking the most important question, why build a PC yourself, to closing up the Budget PC case in the last chapter. Each chapter progresses the same way, clearly showing the reader *a* method to determine what one wants, how to select components to meet that need, alternates or restrictions and slapping the thing together. The writing style is *not* corporate-speak. The Thompson tell you what they thinks and why but also gives marginal room (literally, you'll see) to advice from others and a few dissenting opinions. The book is written (surpirse) and photographed entirely by the authors. Assembly was done on the kitchen table on a sheet, just to show the reader one can assemble a PC at home. And that if you get one's Wife to do the assembly for the photos she can't complain about the use of her sheets.
There is inevitable repetition, one learns how to open the case 6 times. Repetition is necessary if the chapters are to stand alone so don't worry about it when you come across it. The text is descriptive as text can be (how many ways are there to write "take the screwdriver in your gripping hand, unscrew the screw and drop it in the most inaccessible crevice of the case"?) and there are plenty of pictures (see below).
One clear mistake is the Thompson's opinion that once the voltage of the power supply is set correctly you can't, really, hurt anything. This opinion could stand some revision. We recently set fire, *accidentally set fire*, to a hard drive by shorting the contacts on the drive behind the Molex power plug. This prevents the PC from booting and should be avoided. And, no, we did not use a screwdriver.
Which brings us to the best photo in the book, one lone Phillips screwdriver in figure 1-1. The entire arsenal of tools one needs to assemble a PC. Minus the explosives needed to open blister packaging, but that activity is not assembly. It would have been better to show one with a bent blade and a scorched handle, just to make a point, but one can't have everything. The screwdriver on the cover is not the same one illustrated in figure 1-1. The one on the cover is fancy.
The author's own photography is excellent in terms of content and there are many photos in each chapter showing all stages of assembly. And, surprisingly to this reviewer, all are in colour for a book of this sort. Maybe we are just out of date. Most are on the same page as the relevant text, very Tufte-like. Well done. But. Exposure problems make some of the illustrations close to unusable. The content is there but many are too dark to make out clearly. Cameras are very good at making a white sheet look 18% gray! Chapter 8 seems to be affected most, figure 8-52 shows a black SATA plug being attached to a black drive. All we can see are fingers and a bit of green motherboard. Channeling Hotblack Desiato are we? C'mon O'Reilly, give Bob a couple of flashes and Photoshop elements. Seriously, the next edition of the book needs to rectify this issue, luckily the tools are readily available for the home-based author. Building the Photo-Processing PC, anyone? Hmm...that's actually a pretty good idea, come to think of it. We own 8 cameras of various types but *no* computer games. There is a market there.
The cover fell off as we were leafing through our review copy looking for figure 8-52. Serves us right.
The book takes the mystery out of PC components and assembly for the non-initiate, always a good thing, and may even surprise more knowledgeable people. Good reading and recommended.
We still don't know what an Arhat is.
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