How to Use This Textbook

The order of the 16 chapters is largely based on the order that the topics have been covered in the first two semesters of offering our CIT 130 course at Northern Kentucky University. This ordering is partially based on the structure of the course, which meets one day per week for a lecture and one day per week for a laboratory session. So, for instance, the placement of computer history in the middle of the text was caused by the fact that the laboratory sessions that pertain to Chapters 5 and 6 carry on for 3 weeks. Similarly, the computer assembly laboratory lasts 2 weeks, and the lectures that we cover over those weeks are from Chapters 2 and 3. As a teacher, you might desire to rearrange the chapters based on your own needs. In some cases, the order of the chapters is important. This is explained below.

• Chapter 1 should be covered first.
• Chapter 2 Section 2.7 may be skipped if you are not covering PC assembly, although it is recommended that students still read the section.
• Chapter 2 should be covered before Chapter 3.
• Chapter 3 should be covered before Chapters 12 and 15. In Chapter 3, Section 3.3 (negative numbers, floating point and fractional values) can be skipped.
• Chapter 4 should be covered before Chapters 8, 9, and 11.
• Chapter 5 should be covered before Chapter 6 (permissions in Chapter 6 to some extent require that you have already covered the file system in Chapter 5).
• Chapter 7 should be covered before Chapter 8.
• Chapter 12 should be covered before Chapter 15.
• Chapter 16 should be covered last.