Customer Reviews

Programming and Customizing the Pic Microcontroller

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The first six chapters are on/in the Microchip website/data book. Chapters seven through nine are decated to software and hardward design. The rest are on the emulator, hints and code examples.

I bought the book for examples on input/output interfacing and coding. I found one or no input examples and several output examples. Hardware examples were better than coding examples.

This project was my first with uController's but I have been programming and designing hardware for several years. After getting helpful straight foreward examples on input/output hardware and software design, the book became more of an asset. This book is not for beginners.

After reading the earlier, excellent book in this series on Basic Stamps, I was hoping to find another book of similar quality to help me delve into the world of PICs. I am, to say the least, very disappointed. I'm a senior level software engineer with a good hardware background, but I found this book to be so unclear as to be nearly unreadable. There is little logical progression in building the reader's conceptualizations. Facts are introduced seemingly at random. Irrelevant ideas are gratuitously tossed in, only to be rescinded shortly after. I looked in vain for a chapter that lived up to its title, and felt disappointed with each and every one. There isn't even an appendix listing the processor's instruction set! There's no way I could program a PIC after reading this book, and I'm almost as ignorant about them as before. All in all, a very frustrating experience.

This is definately not a book for beginners. There is a lack of order and some things are repeated a couple times. Some basic concepts aren't explained and without them just about everything else dosen't make much sense. If you still decide to buy it I would recommend downloading the datasheets from Microchip and read those before you start the book; and also finding a short description of the commands. One good thing is that he will answer your emails and answer your questions

There is 1243 pages on this book but up to 243 and after 965, there is no useful information. A example:

On figure 2.3, we have that about the printing of datasheets: "to create two-side documents, first print the back side in reverse order, put the pages back into the printer, and print the front side in ascending order." Are you kidding with me, author?

On the book, we have:
*useless block diagrams
*no logical sequence. Low-end, mid-range and PIC18 are all treated simultaneously. Not very pedagogical.
*evasive comments about personal experiences and 8051 microcontrollers approach ( I can do it but it is very difficult to you...)
*nothing about USB. It is very disappointing for a book that deals with PIC18 family.

In general, the book is not a new edition:

On Figure 14.4 there is a printscreen of one very old MPLAB edition. That chapter about debug is very outdated and useless.
On page 538, we have it: " You might be a bit suspicious of an RTOS after what I've just written. After all, you probably have a PC running Windows/95 or Windows/NT."

Recommendation:
Designing Embedded Systems with PIC Microcontrollers: Principles and Applications

The author may know the subject, however by reading the book one does not get that feeling. The book has numerous errors. The author has no idea as to how a book should be written clearly so that people can understand the subject. Microchip data sheets are written better than the whole book. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANY BODY. FIND A DIFFERENT BOOK IF YOU WANT TO LEARN THIS SUBJECT OF PIC MICROCONTROLLERS.

This wonderful book allows students of all levels of electronics to gain a good understanding of the PIC architecture and programming . The scope is well - defined throughout , with numerous experiments and a wealth of PIC resources outside of the text . I am using the book myself and found all the examples clearly explained - as of now I am building a PIC programmer from the layout included in the book . I recommend this text to anyone who wishes to get a hands on course in this topic !

The book is full of good information but it is also full of way too much fluff.

Many of Myke's figures are difficult to follow and the text describing them are often confusing. McGraw Hill used to mean high quality, technical literature (my home library is full of their texts). However, this book was sorely lacking editorial oversight, allowing Predko to babble on, and on.

For the software engineer who wants to understand the chip, he/she should read John B. Peatman's book on the same subject.

I'm 100 pages into the book and am being annoyed more and more.

The author really seems to know his stuff, but he seems to forget that alot of people reading this book are not up to par with his knowledge.
The beginning of this book was fun, because he described many things in layman's terms. When the book starts to give examples in assembly, it's no longer laymen. I had to go online and learn PIC Assembly, then when I went back to the book, I understood what he was trying to explain, but even now having knowledge of PIC Assembly, it was still very difficult to follow. He would mix assembly instructions in with pseudo-code and didn't show how his constants were defined and which registers and their bits were used for what. It was very confusing. Then to top it off, he just jumped from not explaining the specific registers and the uses of their bits to implementing interrupts, which is an even more involved subjet.

Although I have alot of respect for Myke Predko's knowledge in this area, I have to say that his writing is not easy to follow and I saddingly would have to say that this book is more for people with a pretty deep experience in programming MCUs and building electronic circuits.

I wasnt going to buy this book because of the poor reviews. But then I got looking and its published in Sept. 2007 and all the reviews are way before that. So I went to B&N and actually previewed the book and ended up buying it. I'm impressed with parts of the book. He explains a lot about the PIC and covers the difference for most pics. It really ties up a lot of loose ends that I had. The beginner may have not understand everything but the more experinced person will understand completely. The part I didn't like was the Microchip website stuff but here again maybe some people dont surf the net and figure out alot of this stuff themselves. Buy the book if you want the details explained and already have a basic understanding.

This book will setup the beginner with a HOW-TO for developing the hardware necessary to program the PIC. It delves very little into the HOW-TO of the actual software. If you are looking for the instruction set or the methodologies of programming, start with Microchip's Data books. However, if you want a jump start to developing your own hardware to program the PIC, this is an excellent resource. Note that with as many websites as there are today, you may be able to find most of the information online, however, this book will give you a nice place to start your hardware designs.