Customer Reviews

Programming and Customizing the AVR Microcontroller

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

If you already know the Atmel AVR instruction set, skip this book...it is not for you. If you are new to microcontrollers and are thinking about getting into the wonderful Atmel AVR products, this is a great assembly level reference.
Sure...you could pick up datasheets and struggle with the cryptic explanations of the various commands. You could try to read multiple app notes on the Atmel web site. But for a good general overview of what this processor can do, along with well annotated examples, pick this book up.
As a total beginner, myself, this was my first foray into microcontrollers, and this particular book really helped my *comfort level*. "Comfort", it turns out, is an important part to coding one's first project. The examples on the CD are a little slim, but do have some useful sections of code.
Finally, if you have not done so already (I hope amazon lets me put in this address), check out www.avrfreaks.org AvrFreaks.org is the definitive site for questions, answers, examples from real users of the AVR controllers. Combine this book with the AVRFreaks web site and you'll feel like you can accomplish just about anything.
Best of luck.

This book has some good ideas for projects but is otherwise light on content. The first part is supposed to be a reference guide for the AVR, but I've found the free datasheets from Atmel to be more useful and complete. The second part of the book talks about interfacing the AVR. There are some good tidbits in here, such as using IRda, USB, and microprocessor monitor chips. Finally, the last part of the book is a collection of project ideas which I've not found terribly inspiring. Overall, I don't think this was a good value for the money. There are lots of free application notes available on the Net for the PIC or Basic Stamp which can be easily adapted to the AVR. What's really missing from the book is examples showing basic usage of the AVR features, such as the PWM timer, UART, etc. If you are a rank beginner who has never done microcontroller programming, this book is probably not for you. But if you are an intermediate hobbiest looking for some ideas, you might find some gems in here.

Half of this book is just copy and paste from the Atmel Datasheet. The other half are several projects that gives little explanation of what's going on in the project. Don't waste your money buying this book. Download and print Atmel AVR Datasheet. You learn more that way. The datasheet is much more complete and clear. They are also constantly updated.

this book is the best for a newbie,

it contains all the information needed for full development on many projects, it explains many protocols and techniques, it has information about various peripherals and how to control them. the cd - rom is very well written and the examples are great.

my first microcontroller was AVR, i knew almost nothing at that time, this book helped me to develop almost all my projects with success. there is no doubt that it will help everyone who wants to know about AVRs. I consider this book as one of the best i have.

If you've ever read the McGraw Hill PIC book by nearly the same title, you know this book already. It starts out with a re-hash of the Atmel documentation, spends just a few very weak pages on tools and design methodology, and then dives into a handful of hardware projects. There are essentially no useful coding tricks, tips, shortcuts, or other such information that would have made the book worthwhile. The only such general advice tends to be more hardware or project oriented.

The projects themselves are poorly documented with respect to the most critical part--the code. The author seems more intent on showing the reader how to build the hardware than the far more critical task (and title of the book) of programming the AVR. As the projects get more complex, any description of how the code works gets weaker and weaker.

It's almost as if the author expects the reader to build the project and just use his supplied code and take it on faith that it works. This is nearly useless for teaching someone how to program the AVR.

There aren't many books out for the AVR, and if you're desperate, this one is better than the one by Claus Kuhnel, but it still fails to teach a beginner how to do much of anything besides build the 10 included projects. It also fails to teach an experienced embedded programmer how to transition from other microcontrollers to the AVR family.

My final piece of wisdom is to think twice about using the AVR in a new design if you're new to the family. They're very thinly supported in the USA, parts are difficult to obtain and the development tools are not very mature or robust. Even the parts themselves are more prone to problems compared to other microcontrollers I've used (i.e. bugs, noise problems, failures, ESD, etc.). Their real strength is their efficient use with a C compiler which is hardly covered in this book.

For seasoned AVR microcontroller programmers this text is probably of little value. By seasoned, I mean someone who has worked through a number of projects which have basically covered most of the features of the AVR processor. Given the similarities between the AVR and some other micros this comment might include experiences with those as well.

However, for those who are relatively new to the processor and controller programming, it is of value. I found the book useful for bringing to my attention solutions, code and general discussions on areas that I was new to or had little idea that what was possible. A case in point is the IIC interface. It wasn't so much what was said but shown or perhaps implied. Having previously spent a lot of time coding the SPI, it was comforting to get a few insights and directions simply by reading the text.

The projects discussed should be viewed as examples from which the reader gains some insight towards their specific project. It is rare that any text book example is exactly what you want.

There is certainly some extraneous information, like the straight out listing of the instruction set which can be found on Atmel s web site anyway. Additional discussion on the instructions with different examples would have been more useful, although perhaps that whole section could have been dropped and the space given over to discussing something else.

An handy resource book for beginners and useful guide to what is possible using the AVR processor.

I really enjoyed this book. It is well laid out with many pictures and diagrams to clarify what is being explained.

It starts you off explaining some of the basics so that even if you aren't an engineer you can understand what is being explained. The book then progresses into interfacing code with an AVR, and interfacing AVR's with other common (or not so common) peripherals. The book contains projects so that you can implement what you are learning and learn in a project-based hands-on manner. The first project is a simple program that lights an LED; the projects then progress to more complex ideas like the follow me musical toy. The projects cover both the software and hardware angles.

Within hours of receiving this book I was able to get an AVR to give me visible results, I got an LED to flash! Simple I know, but it impressed me.

The section on communication appealed since the idea of getting chips to "talk" to each other sounds really interesting. I didn't realise that there were so many different ways that chips could "talk" to each other. There's CAN that's used in cars, USB to talk to PC's. These different communication interfaces mean that micro controllers could be used in robots or home control amongst many other things, for example you could get a micro controller to turn down the TV volume when the phone rings. It seems really amazing that all these things are possible, and this book has shed light on these possibilities which I never knew existed.

The enclosed CD contains all code that is in the book; this speeds up the process of implementing the projects, along with relevant data-sheets, application notes, and some useful software development tools.

There are recommendations from where to obtain development tools, development boards etc which is useful for those who are new to the AVR.

All the code in the book is well commented, which makes it easy to understand and easy to follow what is going on in the code.

All in all this is a very good book. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to enter the world of micro controllers or someone that already has and needs something comprehensive and informative to refer to.

Not knowing much about Atmel's AVR series I bought this book as a guide for future projects. And i must say i was not disappointed. This book is an excellent complement to the AVR data sheets and provides some real innovative projects for newbies, who want to get their hand dirty with the AVR. A must buy!!!

Most of what you find in this book is what you will find in the data sheet on Atmel's web site. I am a beginner in this area (micros/ programming) and this book isn't of much use to me right now. Perhaps someone with more experience with micros could get more out of it.

I'm new to the Embedded world and this book has been a great source of information.

I have a Atmel stk300 and I got tired of searching the web for info so I bought this book. I'm still in chapter three but this book is worth the money I paid for it. My ATMEL STK300 "Starter Kit" came with a 28 page users guide that provides only basic hardware features. With out this book or a book of this type, a beginner like myself would have a difficult time learning to use the AVRMega.

This book also provides coverage of Dontronics hardware ...

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