Customer Reviews

Atmel AVR Microcontroller Primer: Programming and Interfacing (Synthesis Lectures on Digital Circuits and Systems)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The copy I received from Amazon (publisher says from Amazon's print-on-demand at order time service) was very poor print quality, and a large number of pages, example code, tables, diagrams were competely unreadable. The publisher sent me a replacement copy at their expense from their own printer, which is very good print quality.

This book serves as a decent introduction to microcontrollers and the AVR in particular, giving descriptions of what things such as EEPROM, TWI, PWM, ADC, USART, etc. are and do, and how to talk to them in C code. Talks about interrupt theory and how to use them in C code, looks liek a good bit od discussion and example about timer interrupt and timing things. Advanced users will likely skip over some things such as descriptions of different kinds of switches (momentary pushbutton, DIPs). I was hopin gfor a bit more about controlling DC motors than I see here.

If you already have experience with micros, this may be a bit elementary for you. If you're new to micros, their features, peripherals, and controlling things, this looks like a good introduction.

How do I change from 2 to 4 stars?

If want to know how to use AVRs, this is a great book to start with. Most (not all) of the AVR microcontroller's systems are described with code examples, taking a lot of the pain of trying to wade through the datasheet away from beginners. There are a few assumptions that are made - that you have some programming knowledge in C, and that you are using a particular compiler. Fortunately, the code examples given are easily transplanted.

The book is arranged by sub-system, with chapters going through things such as ADC, timing control, interrupts - I have been highly suprised how simple is interrupt handling. It is pitched at a middle level, definitely good for undergraduate or hobbyists who have some knowledge. Don't go looking in here for pre-made projects and complete code - this is a programming book on how to use the hardware on chip.

There do seem to be a few typos, like lines of code repeated, and some missing information - 7 of the 8 bits in one register are described, but not the 8th. A software purist may also complain about the use of global variables throughout. I could have also done with a better description of setting the fuse bits for clock control of the microcontroller - but at least they were mentioned, unlike in many other books - and a quick on-line search has identified what I need to do correct my problems. So I can't give it a perfect score, but think it was a very good buy.

Printing quality was good, although some of the diagrams seem to have been cut and pasted from Atmel's datasheets, and need a little cleaning up.

The book's strengths more than make up for any errors, and it gives a good, solid foundation. I've been learning a lot about AVRs in the past few weeks with the help of this book.

This book is exactly what I was looking for!

I recently started experimenting with Arduino and find the Arduino programming language, which is very much like C/C++, very easy to use for prototyping projects. However, it's not exactly ANSI C, which is what is largely used in the embedded systems industry. I wanted to use ANSI C with Arduino, to keep my embedded software skills up to date, so I can use it for work. This book shows exactly how one can do this.

Of course the Arduino platform is a fantastic way for people to prototype and build all sorts of electronic projects with a very versatile Atmel AVR microcontroller. My wanting to use ANSI C takes nothing away from that. One can also use other microcontrollers with a C compiler, but the Arduino is so versatile and easy to start with, that I decided to stick with it.

Bottom line: This book shows how to use ANSI C with Arduino.