Learning about Comp. Sci in general?

[happysmileman]

Probably a stupid question, but where would I go about learning about just Computer science in general (on internet), I want to learn about the different pieces of hardware, how they're designed and work, some concepts such as single-core vs. dual-core and some advantages disadvantages of certain types etc...

I already know how to program so know some stuff about it anyway, but it'd be useful to go into good detail about it and get an understanding of it all. There's a book like this in my bookshop but it's really just a reference and it's €60, any free online books?

I've tried googling stuff or checking wikipedia but I either got really dumbed down explanations or explanations of a specific brand or model of hardware.

[Solver]

A couple of sites I'd recommend:

Fairly outdated, but well-structured and much of that information is still applicable anyhow, though you won't find info about multi-core PCs and such:
http://www.pcguide.com/topic.html

An up-to-date site that also features related news. Has good guides on hardware and architecture. A very good site IMO but it does require some knowledge as the pages are often written with that in mind:

http://www.pctechguide.com/

At the above link, I'd particularly recommend the guides on CPUs. They describe general CPU architecture as well as implementations on some specific CPUs.

[Klipt]

Check out the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/index.htm) section of MIT OpenCourseWare.

[samjh]

Computer science is a massive field, there are degree programs running for three years or more on it. :)

To get a general overview, I'd suggest you look for textbooks or online learning resources which cover:

1. Computer architecture
2. Programming and the software development lifecycle
3. Algorithms and data structures

[CptPicard]

As the great prof. Dijkstra said, "Computer Science is as much about computers as Astronomy is about telescopes."

I've got a CS degree and my knowledge of electronics is rudimentary, and of hardware, rather abstract. The real core of CS as I understand it lies in the analysis of the capabilities of different models of computation, and proving stuff about methods (algorithms) to solve problems using those models.

Two good books to get you started:

A decent, yet a bit verbose tome that covers most of the "easy stuff" of classical algorithmics:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H-Cormen/dp/0262032937

If you're feeling more theoretically ambitious, to get a feel of "what it is fundamentally all about:"

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Theory-Computation-Second-Michael/dp/0534950973/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195966725&sr=1-1

[pmasiar]

for general learning, wikiversity and wikibooks is the source