Sep 08, 2006 02:14 PM
4513 Views
It is a good book for Embedded Systems beginners and those who are already familiar with C programming . This book shows how C can be used to write code for an 8 bit microcontroller - Motorola's workhorse of the industry, the 6805. The thermostat project is well documented including a full schematic and real pictures of the completed circuit on the CD. The CD also includes ByteCraft's C compiler and project source code. The project simulates a heating/cooling system with an LCD display, keypad, thermistor, and a fan and light bulb to simulate heating and cooling. The project also makes use of Motorola's MC68HC705JICS emulator (available from DigiKey). One of the most important things an embedded assembly programmer coming into C needs to know is how to set up absolute memory addressing without resorting to compiler-specific features or assembly language. This book resorts to compiler-specific #pragma directives to fit its chosen chip and OS. The fact that we might want to use _no_ OS and a non-Bytecraft compiler is not something that seems to have crossed the author's mind.This book is meant to be only part of a comprehensive education in embedded programming, and makes no claims to be an in depth volume on the subject. If you want a very basic introduction to programming motorolas simplest embedded processors then this book is for you.In conclusion, this is a great book to make one aware of the issues and challenges in writing code in C for 8 bit embedded systems as well as gaining experience on one of Motorola's most popular processors.