Bascom Programming of Microcontrollers With Ease: An Introduction by Program Examples

Rating:
Summary: Great for beginners!
Review: If you are a programmer and just getting started
with MCU's then this is a must have primer!

Good examples, and nice selection of starter circuits
that show the power of bascom!

Rating:
Summary: Knowing vs Teaching
Review: There is a big difference between knowing something and being able to teach it. Claus Kuhnel knows the BASCOM language, he knows the internals of the 8051 and AVR chips, he even knows how to program those chips in assembly language. However, he has no idea how to teach what he knows at an introductory level.

The book begins with descriptions of the BASCOM software and the innards of the two microcontrollers. On page 57 he starts his first example program - how to use the timer interrupt. The example toggles the output of a particular pin on the microcontroller at a set rate. The pin is suppose to be hooked up to an LED. However, he doesn't talk about how to hook up LED's until page 107. He shows a formula that is used to calculate the length of time between interrupts. He doesn't identify what the variables in the formula mean. He doesn't walk through an example of using the formula. He later derives another formula from this formula and doesn't explain how he got from one to the other or what any of the new variables mean.

The beginning of the first program would have been a good time to explain the common elements of a BASCOM program such as setting clock speed, defining variables, how do loops are written - things that will be done in nearly all the program to follow. He did not do this.

His next example is a logic converter. It takes inputs on some pins and uses them to decide what outputs to put onto other pins. While never explained, the inputs are suppose to be switches and the outputs are suppose to be LED's. Again there is no schematic. The example starts with a table that is never fully explained. It then goes on to show values in binary format without ever explaining that &B in front of a number means that it is binary (later he does the same thing using &H without explaining what a Hexadecimal number is). The example uses state space logic by defining cases using the case command. Of course, he never explains what the case command is or how you would use it.

The next set of examples are again talking about timers. At several points in these examples, he takes the time to show what the assembly code looks like that the BASCOM compiler is generating. Why? Unless you already know how to program in assembly, this does not help explain anything. If you already know how to program in assembly on an AVR, you probably would not be buying a introductory book for a higher level language.

Things do not get better as the book continues.

There is no reason to buy this book. You are better off just reading the help files that come with BASCOM and asking question in the forums at http://www.mcselec.com/forum/.