8051 Family of Microcontrollers, The

Rating:
Summary: Lots of bark, but almost no bite.
Review: One doesn't normally expect a technical book to be more than passibly readable, and this slim book is no exception. However, even books with a stiff style, grammatical errors, and blantant proofreading slips can be forgiven when one gets to the technical information. And that, sadly, is what this book is missing. Although there are some schematics, and an OK, if greatly abbreviated discussion of A/D operation and usage, the book simply lacks any significant punch. And then there are the errors. Just looking through the first chapter I spotted several. In one, a pin on the 8051 is mislabled as an output, and then referred to in the text as an input. Do you suppose that might confuse someone? Or the references to entries in a table which do not exist? The table is there, but the entries in question are not. Perhaps this book could have been saved by including some data sheets from Intel or Philips. Perhaps a discussion of timer operation would have helped, if it had turned out to be any more than just a rehash of the timer register descriptions from the data sheets. Well, that's the bottom line here, actually. This book doesn't have anything you can't get from the manufacturers, personal web pages, and even a pretty good FAQ. Get the Intel, Philips, and Dallas Semicondutor PDF files (8051 Programmer's Guide, datasheets, etc.) and you will have more information than can be found in this book, and it will be better written, too. And the best part is that the stuff from the manufacturers is free.