Code is not like other how-computers-work books. It doesn't have big color illustrations of disk drives with arrows showing how the data sweeps into the computer. Code has no drawings of trains carrying a cargo of zeros and ones. Metaphors… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
“In 1948, while working for Bell Telephone Laboratories, he published a paper in the Bell System Technical Journal entitled "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" that not only introduced the word bit in print but established a field of study today known as information theory. Information theory is concerned with transmitting digital information in the presence of noise (which usually prevents… — Charles Petzold Copy Share
MIDI made a natural transition to the PC. The MIDI messages that make up a musical composition can be saved as MIDI files, which… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
All modern MIDI synthesizers are capable of polyphony, which means they can play more than one note at a time and more than one… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
Computer monitors can operate in many different video modes. In most cases, the decision about how many pixels and colors to display is yours… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
In some far-off distant time, when the twentieth century history of primitive computing is just a murky memory, someone is likely to suppose that… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
Many MIDI files contain entire musical compositions. Because MIDI supports only 16 channels, however, no more than 16 different instruments can play at any… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
I felt more like a scientist exploring nature, and Windows was my environment. You don't pass judgment on nature; you just explain how it… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
Some programs - especially games - require that your system be set to a particular color depth and resolution. Often such special settings are… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
The human species is often amazingly inventive and industrious but at the same time profoundly lazy. It's very clear that we humans don't like… — Charles Petzold Copy Share Image
