---
product_id: 1320639
title: "Code"
price: "AED 202"
currency: AED
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.ae/products/1320639-code
store_origin: AE
region: United Arab Emirates
---

# Lightning-fast performance Cross-platform compatibility Robust security features Code

**Price:** AED 202
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Summary

> 🚀 Code Your Future: Where Innovation Meets Collaboration!

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Code
- **How much does it cost?** AED 202 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ae](https://www.desertcart.ae/products/1320639-code)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Key Features

- • **Secure Your Innovations:** Protect your code with top-tier security protocols.
- • **Stay Ahead of the Curve:** Utilize cutting-edge technology to future-proof your projects.
- • **Unleash Your Creativity:** Transform ideas into reality with seamless coding.
- • **Collaborate Effortlessly:** Work with teams in real-time, no matter where you are.
- • **Join a Thriving Community:** Connect with like-minded professionals and elevate your skills.

## Overview

Code is a powerful, versatile programming tool designed for professionals seeking to enhance their coding experience. With cross-platform compatibility, lightning-fast performance, and robust security features, it empowers users to create, collaborate, and innovate in a secure environment.

## Description

What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through CODE, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries. Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who’s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines. It’s a cleverly illustrated and eminently comprehensible story―and along the way, you’ll discover you’ve gained a real context for understanding today’s world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. No matter what your level of technical savvy, CODE will charm you―and perhaps even awaken the technophile within.

Review: explanation of computers for the laymen - This book is quite possibly the best explanation of how computers work from a bottom-up perspective I have ever come across. Petzold takes us on a journey in short, easy-to-read, and occasionally humorous chapters, staring from two young children passing messages to each other after bed time with flashlights, all the way up though circuitry, machine language, memory, and so on. I also enjoyed the historical aspect of Petzold's presentation. He gives names, dates, and sometimes faces. Personally, I find it amazing that we humans have come so far in so short a time period with all our technologies. Petzold requires no in-depth knowledge of computers from his readers- he gradually builds up on concepts that are always tied back to everyday occurrences in your life. Let's take the discussion of Morse code as a talking point: Sure, you could flash a light bulb once for A, twice for B, three times for C, and so on, but your fingers would fall off after a few words. Instead, lets agree to vary the length of time the light is on, and combine different sequences of light blinks to correspond to different letters, which is much easier on the fingers, because we make commonly used letters easier to send. From there, we get into telegraphs, and oh by the way, that is essentially the same way computers send data. This is typical of what Petzold does all throughout the book: start with what most people would call a reasonable solution to a problem, expose its flaws, then show the more thought-out solution, and then fill in the gaps to tie it back to modern digital computers. The book is ten years old now, but is still very relevant...which I find astounding, given how fast anything to do with computers changes these days. Petzold barely skims the surface of programming, so if you are looking for a book strictly on coding, search elsewhere (try the more software-oriented explanation of computer workings Write Great Code: Volume 1: Understanding the Machine ). The last few chapters do seem to be a hurried conclusion, but I would attribute this more to the fact that now that we know how computers work, what we can do with them is an infinitely broad category, so only a summary discussion is reasonable. Whether you are a computer scientist or not, I think you will benefit from this gem of a book- if you are not, then enjoy learning how computers really work. If you are an established computer scientist, you've probably seen everything in the book before, but it still warrants your time because of the clear analogies that are used throughout the book. I know I have had enough people ask me "how does (insert something about computers) work?", and I haven't been able to clearly explain the concepts- now I have some good analogies to use, as well as a book to heartily recommend.
Review: Half "light read", half "I have to do that section again" - Great overview of how computers really work - As many other reviews said, the first part of the book is a brilliant, entertaining, easily understandable & accessible overview of underlying topics that relate to how "codes", electronic signals, alternate number systems & computers came about. The latter sections are considerably more dense, and required going back a few times, tracing the circuit diagrams with my finger, and Googling the finer points of electrical circuitry, how to do math in binary, octal, and hexadecimal, and other assorted topics covered in this wide-ranging work. I had classes a LONG time ago in electrical engineering, as well as a good amount of experience with binary, hex(adecimal), and programming, so given that background I could follow along fairly easily & connect the concepts to my existing knowledge. If you don't have any background at all in EE, Comp Sci, or programming, be prepared to re-read & re-re-read the chapters on logic gates, circuits, and how these bits of hardware physically compute & store basic arithmetic values in order to perform complex tasks. Those sections were the most challenging, but ultimately for me provided the most valuable information because it helped fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle in my prior knowledge. For anyone who wants to "learn to code," but you find yourself confused by or not really bothering to understand concepts like pointers, memory addresses, Boolean logic, or esoteric & ancient magic spells like "XOR" or Assembly Language, this book does an excellent job of explaining in real, physical hardware terms exactly what those mean and how they work. My only critique is that after ALL that fine-grained detail & historical backstory for most of the book, the final chapter crams roughly the last 40 years of computing into a few short pages, covering everything from Graphical User Interfaces & image compression to the internet & (rather outdated) descriptions of web browsers. It felt rushed & tacked on. I'd really like to see an update, or a companion book, that covers newer topics in such detail as the first half of this book. Overall though, this was a fantastic, educational if at-times-dense read. I had to work at it a bit, but that was the point. If you hate to read, don't want to learn, and are too lazy to work at it - buy it anyway to give him another $15 and then write a review explaining why it's the book/author's fault :P

## Features

- New
- Mint Condition
- Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
- Guaranteed packaging
- No quibbles returns

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,782 Reviews |

## Images

![Code - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51zzPHbnhzL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ explanation of computers for the laymen
*by L***R on January 5, 2009*

This book is quite possibly the best explanation of how computers work from a bottom-up perspective I have ever come across. Petzold takes us on a journey in short, easy-to-read, and occasionally humorous chapters, staring from two young children passing messages to each other after bed time with flashlights, all the way up though circuitry, machine language, memory, and so on. I also enjoyed the historical aspect of Petzold's presentation. He gives names, dates, and sometimes faces. Personally, I find it amazing that we humans have come so far in so short a time period with all our technologies. Petzold requires no in-depth knowledge of computers from his readers- he gradually builds up on concepts that are always tied back to everyday occurrences in your life. Let's take the discussion of Morse code as a talking point: Sure, you could flash a light bulb once for A, twice for B, three times for C, and so on, but your fingers would fall off after a few words. Instead, lets agree to vary the length of time the light is on, and combine different sequences of light blinks to correspond to different letters, which is much easier on the fingers, because we make commonly used letters easier to send. From there, we get into telegraphs, and oh by the way, that is essentially the same way computers send data. This is typical of what Petzold does all throughout the book: start with what most people would call a reasonable solution to a problem, expose its flaws, then show the more thought-out solution, and then fill in the gaps to tie it back to modern digital computers. The book is ten years old now, but is still very relevant...which I find astounding, given how fast anything to do with computers changes these days. Petzold barely skims the surface of programming, so if you are looking for a book strictly on coding, search elsewhere (try the more software-oriented explanation of computer workings Write Great Code: Volume 1: Understanding the Machine ). The last few chapters do seem to be a hurried conclusion, but I would attribute this more to the fact that now that we know how computers work, what we can do with them is an infinitely broad category, so only a summary discussion is reasonable. Whether you are a computer scientist or not, I think you will benefit from this gem of a book- if you are not, then enjoy learning how computers really work. If you are an established computer scientist, you've probably seen everything in the book before, but it still warrants your time because of the clear analogies that are used throughout the book. I know I have had enough people ask me "how does (insert something about computers) work?", and I haven't been able to clearly explain the concepts- now I have some good analogies to use, as well as a book to heartily recommend.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Half "light read", half "I have to do that section again" - Great overview of how computers really work
*by M***1 on June 20, 2017*

As many other reviews said, the first part of the book is a brilliant, entertaining, easily understandable & accessible overview of underlying topics that relate to how "codes", electronic signals, alternate number systems & computers came about. The latter sections are considerably more dense, and required going back a few times, tracing the circuit diagrams with my finger, and Googling the finer points of electrical circuitry, how to do math in binary, octal, and hexadecimal, and other assorted topics covered in this wide-ranging work. I had classes a LONG time ago in electrical engineering, as well as a good amount of experience with binary, hex(adecimal), and programming, so given that background I could follow along fairly easily & connect the concepts to my existing knowledge. If you don't have any background at all in EE, Comp Sci, or programming, be prepared to re-read & re-re-read the chapters on logic gates, circuits, and how these bits of hardware physically compute & store basic arithmetic values in order to perform complex tasks. Those sections were the most challenging, but ultimately for me provided the most valuable information because it helped fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle in my prior knowledge. For anyone who wants to "learn to code," but you find yourself confused by or not really bothering to understand concepts like pointers, memory addresses, Boolean logic, or esoteric & ancient magic spells like "XOR" or Assembly Language, this book does an excellent job of explaining in real, physical hardware terms exactly what those mean and how they work. My only critique is that after ALL that fine-grained detail & historical backstory for most of the book, the final chapter crams roughly the last 40 years of computing into a few short pages, covering everything from Graphical User Interfaces & image compression to the internet & (rather outdated) descriptions of web browsers. It felt rushed & tacked on. I'd really like to see an update, or a companion book, that covers newer topics in such detail as the first half of this book. Overall though, this was a fantastic, educational if at-times-dense read. I had to work at it a bit, but that was the point. If you hate to read, don't want to learn, and are too lazy to work at it - buy it anyway to give him another $15 and then write a review explaining why it's the book/author's fault :P

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Changes pretty dramatically after a few chapters.
*by R***A on March 12, 2014*

Let me revise my previous review with a few brief things to say about this. First, this book has a lot of pictures and diagrams and you'll want to frequently go back to them and take your time. For this reason, it's probably a pretty bad idea to buy the kindle version. Second, this books starts out as super-light reading (for me anyway) and then starts getting much harder and denser. For that reason I can't give it 5-stars. The preview you get for your kindle might be misleading for that reason. The pacing, in my opinion, was too slow in the beginning and too fast in the middle. You'll want to take your time with this book. This is very close to a Malcolm Gladwell or Freakonomics style book, but it's not quite. But, on the other hand, this really is a good book if you want to learn about this sort of thing. Unlike Gladwell or Freakonomics, you really are learning stuff. I see no reason why this couldn't be used in a college course, but it won't feel like you're reading a textbook. For what it is, it's extremely accessible. And I don't think there's another book quite like this, certainly not of this quality. It is extremely well written. I did wind up taking a few flashcards, though, since it is harder than other books that follow the template of: "one-syllable-word: the amazing hidden side of superlative everythingness." But it's still done in a style that is very close to that. And you'll actually learn things that are true, and not figure out a later after you read the book that studies were misrepresented and facts distorted to fit the narrative of the book. So that's why I revised this review. I know a bit more than I did when I first wrote it and my expectations of what the book is has changed, too. I'm going to buy whatever this guy puts out next. Four stars only because the pacing was a little off and it might not be exactly what you expect it is from the first couple of chapters. If you want to actually learn about how computers work, there has never been a book this well-written. But you do have to actually want to know how computers work.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Code
- Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
- C Programming: A Modern Approach, 2nd Edition

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*Product available on Desertcart United Arab Emirates*
*Store origin: AE*
*Last updated: 2026-05-16*