by Kenneth R. Koehler, 2002. This hypertextbook is an introduction to the mathematics used in the design of computer and network hardware and software. Its goal is to prepare the student for further coursework in such areas as hardware architecture, operating systems internals, application programming, databases and networking. The text contains a great deal of theoretical and technical information which you need to learn, as well as examples and exercises in a number of computations in which you need to become adept. But it also has something more. There are several intangible skills which are at the core of the computer professional's toolbox. These include a basic "numeracy" in binary and hexadecimal number systems, the ability to break up a complicated problem into a sequence of simpler problems, and the ability to see the similarities in things which do not appear related to the casual observer ( through graphs of functions ). This book attempts to help you develop those skills as you learn the information and become competent in the computations. Hence the method used to convert between number systems encourages numeracy, the problems in chapter 2 all require you to compute complex expressions in a step by step fashion, and the graphing problems encourage you to redraw graphs in a topologically equivalent but more useful manner to facilitate their solution.

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