If you are maintaining legacy personal computers and need to know more, you should seriously consider buying this book. If you are just curious about currently available computer hardware, this book puts a practical spin on the underlying concepts. Highly recommended for everyone. The Indispensable PC Hardware Book, Second Edition is amazing. The topics cover minutia that could prove priceless when developing device drivers, working on hardware devices, or just to learn something new.
Every imaginable topic is covered.
The Hardware Book is broken down into six logical parts with thirty-three chapters plus appendices. It is hard to do justice to this book. The writing is understandable, technical, and detailed. Since I can't adequately describe the style, I must provide a little taste of the writings. Note that additionally, the i386 must already be working in protected mode.