CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, 8th Edition (Exams 220-801 & 220-802), 8th Edition

PREFACE

I started writing computer books for the simple reason that no one wrote the kind of books I wanted to read. The books were either too simple (Chapter 1, “Using Your Mouse”) or too complex (Chapter 1, “TTL Logic and Transistors”), and none of them provided a motivation for me to learn the information. I believed that there were geeky readers just like me who wanted to know why they needed to know the information in a computer book.

Good books motivate readers to learn what they are reading. If a book discusses binary arithmetic but doesn’t explain why I need to learn it, for example, that’s not a good book. Tell me that understanding binary makes it easier to understand how a CPU works or why a megabyte is different from a million bytes—then ...