This edition provides MIS students with a gentle approach to fundamental computer hardware, systems software and data concepts. The goal of this book is to provide the fundamentals of computer architecture, which are essential to the workplace survival of Information Systems graduates. This text provides a careful, in depth, non-engineering introduction to the inner workings of modern computer systems. Since the publication of the first edition, enormous advances in computer technology have been made. As a result, new advances have been built into this edition in the areas of operating system design and computer interconnection.