 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | The Newnes Know It All Series takes the best of what our authors have written over the past few years and creates a one-stop reference for engineers involved in markets from communications to embedded systems and everywhere in between.
PIC design and development a natural fit for this reference series as it is one of the most popular microcontrollers in the world and we have several superbly authored books on the subject. This material ranges from the basics to more advanced topics. There is also a very strong project basis to this learning. The average embedded engineer working with this microcontroller will be able to have any question answered by this compilation. He/she will also be able to work through real-life problems via the projects contained in the book. The Newnes Know It All Series presentation of theory, hard fact, and project-based direction will be a continual aid in helping the engineer to innovate in the workplace.
Section I. An Introduction to PIC Microcontrollers
Chapter 1. The PIC Microcontroller Family
Chapter 2. Introducing the PIC 16 Series and the 16F84A
Chapter 3. Parallel Ports, Power Supply and the Clock Oscillator
Section II. Programming PIC Microcontrollers using Assembly Language
Chapter 4. Starting to Program-An Introduction to Assembler
Chapter 5. Building Assembler Programs
Chapter 6. Further Programming Techniques
Chapter 7. Prototype Hardware
Chapter 8. More PIC Applications and Devices
Chapter 9. The PIC 1250x Series (8-pin PIC microcontrollers)
Chapter 10. Intermediate Operations using the PIC 12F675
Chapter 11. Using Inputs
Chapter 12. Keypad Scanning
Chapter 13. Program Examples
Section III. Programming PIC Microcontrollers using PicBasic
Chapter 14. PicBasic and PicBasic Pro Programming
Chapter 15. Simple PIC Projects
Chapter 16. Moving On with the 16F876
Chapter 17. Communication
Section IV. Programming PIC Microcontrollers using MBasic
Chapter 18. MBasic Compiler and Development Boards
Chapter 19. The Basics-Output
Chapter 20. The Basics-Digital Input
Chapter 21. Introductory Stepper Motors
Chapter 22. Digital Temperature Sensors and Real-Time Clocks
Chapter 23. Infrared Remote Controls
Section V. Programming PIC Microcontrollers using C
Chapter 24. Getting Started
Chapter 25. Programming Loops
Chapter 26. More Loops
Chapter 27. NUMB3RS
Chapter 28. Interrupts
Chapter 29. Taking a Look under the Hood
*Over 900 pages of practical, hands-on content in one book!
*Huge market - as of November 2006 Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, produced its 5 BILLIONth PIC microcontroller
*Several points of view, giving the reader a complete 360 of this microcontroller |
Average Customer Rating:   Not As Advertised - Save Your Money While the material in the book is fair, I think the authors and publisher were just trying to make a big book with a lot of pages. A free Newnes Online Membership is advertised on the cover which is supposed to give you "four free downloadable selections from leading experts on the cutting edge", but there is no information on how to take advantage of this offer and emails to [...] support have been ignored. Save your money - most of the information is available online.PIC Microcontrollers: Know It All (Newnes Know It All) four languages - assembly, PicBasic, MBasic, C This reference text is too long for me. The author presents four different programming languages for the PIC which are assembly, PicBasic, MBasic, and C. I would have preferred everything in "C" with more extensive examples. Great Coverage I really like this book. It gives a thorough review of all the different flavors of PIC microcontrollers with all the specs so that you can decide which is most appropriate for the task at hand. There are numerous projects to please curious techies of all skill levels.
The logic diagrams, circuit diagrams, tables, flowcharts, photos and code blocks are clear and abundant. They provide more than enough illustrative assistance to help throughout the discovery of all the possibilities available using this wonderfully versatile family of microprocessors.
Although my experience in Computer Science and Computer Integrated Electronics has been helpful for following the content in this book, along with having had an ambitious, robot-savvy Assembly Language instructor, I'm pretty sure that anyone with enough curiosity and a basic understanding of programming could get a lot out of this book. It not only covers the PIC microprocessors, but also the hardware and a variety of programming languages you can use to control your chips.
Everything you need to know is presented logically within this outstanding reference. It's a full-featured, concise resource well worth its shelf space! Normally hard to review a reference selection guide, but this has more to offer. On the outside this looks like dozens of other engineering selection guides for various electronic parts. What sets it apart and makes it a little easier to review is that it takes a kind of a textbook approach to the subject. It contains program examples, the basics of each device, and some usage examples.
I would highly recommend this to someone with a little bit of technical background, and whose goal is to develop a smart product or device. It would not only aid in the selection of which programable processor to choose, but you may even find examples on how to implement solutions that would save valuable development time. I think this book had a number of potential users, not only the engineer, but the dabbler, the student, the inventor, or the teacher.
There is enough information in the technical data to make decisions in case a chip choice might include some future expansion. All in all a good little book to have on the electronics shelf. A CD is included with source code and a student evaluation edition of a compiler, various functions will cease to work after 60 days so, if you are gonna work seriously with the processors you'll eventually have to buy a compiler, but at least you can try out some test projects. You will typically need some hardware to flash these with too, so the book doesn't get you everything, it just provides the basic knowledge. Not all inclusive, but a helpful reference PIC Microcontrollers, Know it All is exactly what the cover describes it as; the ultimate hard-working desk reference. I bought this book with the hopes that it would help me learn the language necessary to write successful programs for the Microchip® PIC Microcontroller; and it did just that, help. It is not an all-inclusive study guide or teaching aide.
The text provides knowledge necessary to build a base knowledge of the inner workings of microcontrollers, and explores some various languages available to help you begin writing programs. It will help you understand how information moves within the microcontrollers, explores memory and architecture types, introduces you to the microcontroller instruction set, and more. With this text, and supplemental information from the internet, I was successful in learning assembly language programming, having had no previous knowledge or experience in about a month's time.
I would like to point out, that I felt this book's layout was a bit unorganized. There were sections and chapters that felt out of place, and sometimes left me confused. As an example, the book begins explaining how to accomplish tasks using certain lines of instructions prior to introducing you to any instructions at all, let alone the instructions the text references. I found myself constantly flipping around the book, sometimes hundreds of pages at a time, to find information I needed to read a chapter in the beginning of the book.
Despite the book's minor flaws, it still proved to be an invaluable resource, and it will find a permanent home on my book shelf at the side of my desk. Again, as the book's cover says, it is undoubtedly the ultimate hard-working desk reference, and a worth-while investment. |  |
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