Customer Reviews

123 PIC Microcontroller Experiments for the Evil Genius

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is a Tale of Two Books.

One Book misrepresents itself as a compilation of "123 PIC Projects for the Evil Genius." Wannabe Evil Geniuses everywhere will be mightily annoyed when they find out - after purchase - that this is not at all a listing of evil projects. It gets worse: The book is full of typos and coding errors.

The "Second" book - while physically the same book - is actually/potentially a very good hands-on guide/course to learning PIC Microprocessor programing and system development. The name of the book should be changed to something honest, such as "A Two-Semester PIC Programming Course." Predko is obviously a very good PIC programmer, and his language prose skills (or his re-writer's skills...) are impressive; one of the few authors who uses semicolons consistantly and correctly. Nevertheless, there are many gramatical and wrong-word errors in the text - which can't easily be found with a spell checker. I think after completing all 123 experiments, a reader would be a pretty fair PIC programmer. I imagine two months of every-day effort would be enough to get up to speed. However, as other reviewers have pointed out, even the source code and schematics have errors, so a student or teacher should hesitate to use this books as a one or two semester class unless someone -a summer test student maybe - had taken a run through the entire book and noted all discrepancies. It's not a good start that the author's instructions for initial laoding and setup of PICC LITE and MPLAB IDE don't work as detailed, and that suddenly an unexplained HI-TIDE IDE is offered for download without explanation.

Mostly it bothers that the author seems to have abandoned this book. No forum, no errata list. No forum discussion of HI-TIDE. Did the author just take the money and run ?

I love and hate this book. It is packed with information, and the as I'm new to microcontroller programming, I'm learning a lot from it. Myke's knowledge of the PICMicro controllers really shines through. It covers a wide range of topics from toys, sensors, C & ASM coding. Note: You'll want to turn off compiler optimizations when stepping through code to understand it or you may become confused. The optimizer is aggresive (which is good) but it can do strange things.

My only real complaint is that it is full of typos and errors both in the text and schematics. One example, the schematic for experiment #96 says 6.0V but it actually needs 4.5V.

Also, I've learned that it's hard to find discrete components locally now (everything is surface-mount) so you'll probably have to order parts online through Digikey, Jameco or Mouser. Order extra PICs as you'll inevitably fry a couple.

If you want to learn what microcontrollers can do, than this is the book for you.

I've enjoyed the publications by Myke Predko, however, this book was a dissapointment. It claims 123 "Experiments" ,but this is not the case. Each "experiment" is acutally a page or half page "topic" on ideas, or suggestions regarding PIC interfacing and VERY basic electronics.

The title is misleading.

I would only recommend this book as an introduction to the PIC Microcontroller and those who are interested in basic electronics.

Myke Predko is an exceptional professional and is considered the Oracle of the PIC Micro-Controller. I have 10 of his books but could not enjoy this one.

As a PIC beginner I was hoping for more than this book provides in the first few chapters.

As already pointed out the title is very misleading; there certainly aren't 123 "experiments". Many of the 123 articles are to do with the ins and outs of programming in C.

The typos and other mistakes don't help either and don't fill you with confidence when what you do doesn't reflect what the book says will happen, e.g. experiment 7, p31 where the LEDs I get aren't the same as indicated, and looking at the circuit, you'd never get the LEDs lit as indicated in the book.

Sloppy.

This book is very difficult to follow. It isn't intended for beginners, I guess, but even novices will have trouble following the information here. The circuits and ideas are good if all you want to do is build someone else's circuits, but if your goal is learning about microcontrollers, this one is somewhat poorly written and tough to follow. Also, as other reviews have stated, expect MANY typographical errors!

Although I have to agree with some of the other reviewers, the book is an excellent "hardware centric" exposure to microcontrollers. The circuit and parts explainations are fragmented, and need major editing. I look at this book as a low cost way (with the $36 PICKIT1) to have hands on exposure to both C and assembly language without having to buy additional compilers or hardware. In this book, the low end microcontroller that is used in most of the "experiments", gives the reader the exposure to almost every conceivable peripheral that microcontrollers can be used with. The designs are extremely clever and show how much can be done with minimal circuits and code, something that is lacking in most texts. This is not a book for novices, but more of a mid-level experimenter, or evil genius wanna-be.

Myke Predko obviously knows his stuff, and can relate it pretty well to the average person. However, this book is FULL of typos. I'm talking at least every other page has one. Some of these in the actual code, making it quite a challenge, and almost impossible to debug.

The CD was NOT included, nor is it on the website the book claims it should be. This is quite a hinderence. Also, Myke's website(www.myke.com) is long overdue for an update. To the point this book isn't even mentioned on it.

I would be embarrassed and ashamed if my name was on the cover of this book. I can't recommend this to anyone, even "Evil Genius" fans.

A BOM (with the specific manufacturer's part number) for each project requiring components would be very nice. I've spent hours at www.digikey.com just trying to figure out which components to buy. Also a nice inclusion would be an overall BOM for the entire book. This would really expedite the whole ordering process. The individual components are relatively inexpensive, but the price seems to add up very quickly. I also found that the suppliers tend to add a $5 handling charge if your order is under $25. Only 3 stars for being disorganized and not including a proper BOM. I haven't started the experiments yet so I can't provide a proper rating for that material. Hopefully the C isn't as difficult to implement as the previous reviewer indicated. Another heads up I almost forgot. The PICkit 1 no longer includes the 14-pin PIC16F684 the book focuses on so make sure to order it separately.

There are some useful projects in this book, but it's mostly a waste of money. Many of the "experiments" aren't experiments at all, but just pages of information you're supposed to read. About 1/3 of the book is devoted to entry-level C programming, and has nothing to do with the PIC microcontroller. In addition to the coding errors mentioned by others, the C-language instruction is being done by someone who knows little or nothing about C programming standards and proper programming style. Even the correct examples are "weird looking" to an experienced C programmer.

Definitely not worth the money.

I have actually finished the first 50 projects. I did every one of them and made them work, exactly as advertised. The book is awesome although
not without problems. There were no significant errors in the C code unless
you consider using '11', instead of '++' to increment a for loop to be serious? Anyway, this is a trivial error and anyone remotely familiar with C would detect it immedidately. Otherwise all 50 projects have compiled flawlessly with the exception of Experiment 49 which uses a 16F684 to decode a keypad. The code consumed all of the code space but, once understood, was easily resolved by hard-coding a few constants in order to conserve space. As for the circuits, nary a hitch with the single exception, again in project 49, of failing to connect pin 5 of an LCD to ground. But again, this is easily understandable if you are paying attention to his previous project.

Another issue is the author's usage of Enlish. There are some syntax problems but, again, if you want to concentrate on the project, you will
understand what is being said and done. If the remaining projects even
approach these first 50, I will consider this a magnficent accomplishment.

If you want to master the PIC 16F, you cannot go wrong with this book.