Customer Reviews

Design With Pic Microcontrollers

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

 

 

As with Peatman's other books, this one SEEMS to cover the material at first glance in the bookstore. But then, after the reader purchases the book and gets it home, s/he will find the coverage incomplete and diluted. What do I mean? Specifically, there are no detailed or in-depth examples. The material is abstract and general in nature. For a topic like microcontrollers, the reader needs examples that are "step-by-step" and "how-to". These are totally lacking. Buy any other book instead. Then you might actually learn something.

Don't believe for a minute the rave reviews preceding this one!

You may be a seasoned embedded system programmer, and you want to get up to speed quickly rather than relying on pouring through Microchip's reference manuals, this book is not it.

It's too bad that the author is not as good at writing as he is at marketing the book. A good writer will make even a difficult subject easy to understand. It is not so in this case. Sadly, the converse is true. (Randal Schwartz of Learning Perl fame, are you listening?!)

I am going to learn to design and program the PIC, but not with this book.

Bottom line: save the money and stay with the Microchip references available online.

I took Dr. Peatman's class in college with this book, and I think this book would have done better if he had bundled the Class Lab book. The class lab book and actually having the hardware in front of you made the book make a whole lot more sense. I can see how some of the other readers may have been disappointed because with out the hardware in front of you its a bit difficult to really understand whats going on. I think this book is great as a reference if you have a PIC controller to play around with, but I would not recommend this book to some one who is looking for a "PIC microprocessors for Dummies" type book.

Peatman's book would serve very well as a second or third year Electronics/Computer Science text without being too highbrow about it. Very useful in all respects. Focus is on the PIC16c6x and PIC 16c7x chips, but can be used with most others as well.

This might be a suitable reference for someone who is already intimately familiar with PIC microcontrollers but it way too advanced for beginners. From the first page the author assumes you already know alot about microprocessors including the lingo.
The writing style is just dreadful, with sentences that run on and on in a prose that would leave Yoda confused. This is not a fun read about what should be a fun subject.
Beginners will find the book too obtuse and advanced users need nothing more than the device datasheets so the book is pointless.

This book is basically an over-priced college text. ... On the other hand, there are a few good practical applications illustrated. The author choose to place a special emphasis on timing issues.

This was the first book I used when starting out with PICs. I found that it was not the smoothest reading book out there, but it got me up and running. The first program in the book to make an LED blink on and off looks like the source code to a 3D modeling program, that aside I found myself thumbing through this book constantly to learn how to use the onboard periferals of a mid range PIC. I give it a fair rating for learning and a good rating for reference.

Peatman has done an admirable job of condensing the world of PICs into about 300 pages. The book is very readable. However, it is lacking in code samples and circuits. The Microchip Application notes, available at their website, help to close this deficiency.

The book covers all the basics though. Serial, I2C, using templates, timers, etc. The examples are generally clear and if you've had previous assembly experience, this is an easy read and good way to get up to speed on the PIC series of microcontrollers.

I recommend this book without qualification! After a disappointing encounter with the popular Predko book, I bought John Peatman's book sight unseen. I was not disappointed. This book has strong content, writing, and organization. It supplies all the information I needed to get started and it moves smoothly to advanced programming and applications. The only surprise, after Predko's book, was that Peatman focuses on the larger packages, with no mention of the 18- and 8-pin devices; however, since the features of the larger devices are a superset of the smaller devices, it is easy to understand (and use) the smaller devices using this text. Peatman covers all the advances peripheral interface features of the high-end PICs. Although I am not using such features today, I am happy to have a well-written and thorough reference in my possession. An excellent book!

Unlike many of the current micro-controller texts currently available which extoll the history of the technology and earlier (re. out of date information), this text is refreshingly to the point. It focuses on current PIC controllers (could use an addendum for newest additions) and current interface components such as rotary encoders and LCD displays suitable for low cost design. Additionally, instead of the classical approach to assembly language pedagogy, the text instead, takes a template approach in which the requirements of simple PIC microprograms are developed first and then more complex techniques are introduced. Several examples are presented towards the end of the text -- but the exposition does not rest on these cases. It is firmly based on practical design partitioning and accommodation of constraints. Overall, the best of the several PIC texts and indeed, several microcontroller texts I have reviewed.