Customer Reviews

Serial PIC'n : PIC Microcontroller Serial Communications

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

 

 

Mr. Stevens has written a book that is very accurate and detailed. He covers I2C, SPI, Microwire, and Dallas Semi's 1-wire bus in great detail. I found his explanations to be simple but effetive in getting the point across. If you want to know about the PIC's serial communications options then I would highly recommend this book. You won't be disappointed.

This book will provide the reader with an excellent resource not only for serial communications techniques, but also for the PIC micro in general. The algorithms for bit-banging the various serial protocols are valid for other microcontrollers as well (such as the 8051). All of the code from the book I've used so far has worked with little or no modifications.

First off; this is a massive book. Lots and lots of information. Most good; some not so good. This is ANOTHER one of those books that insist on printing out page after page after page of code. That is one of the reasons this book is so massive. This is one of the bad points. Code belongs on an included cd, or in the appendix. Code Should never be included in the main text, UNLESS the code itself is being explained. For the most part, this isn't the case with this book. (or any other pic book that I have seen for that matter.)

This book requires prior knowledge of pics and electronics. For the most part, pics and electronics is not explained - it is assumed. Serial communications, using various mediums is explained very well however. Which of course is the intent of this book. I would have liked to have seen a lot more hardware coverage (sorely lacking in most pic books currenty on the market - except John Iovine books; those are pretty good.) This book lacks severely in hardware covered; it focuses on software and serial protocols.

Removing page after page of code (which isn't explained) would reduce this books volume by half.

This book WILL NOT TEACH you assembly language, picmicros, or electronics. You should have an intermediate knowledge of them beforehand.

I would say of the five or so books I have on pics, this is towards the middle in terms of quality.

While serial communications is still a black art even to engineers, this book helps to clear out some dust. It's helping me a lot, so I recommend it to those who are PIC micro enthusiasts.

One warning though, it's not for beginner because it doen't teach PIC programming in general, it focus on I2C, SPI, microwire, bit-banging,... which means you need some general background in PIC micro and circuit design.

Excellent book for anyone that need to communicate with so many serial devices. Lots of information .At last you can understand and learn and build and experiment.