systems analysis and design

Writing a book as complete and well-thought-out as this one takes a Herculean effort, which is why most technical books are lacking in detail. Somehow, John Peatman has pulled it off, producing a book that is complete and detailed in every way. He completely describes the new, juicy, full-featured PIC18F452 and does it well. Two years ago, I wrote a disparaging review of Peatman's "Design With Pic Microcontrollers," feeling it was sketchy and lacking examples. Now, in "Embedded Design," he has produced a clear, well-written and complete package. Each chapter has a nice set of problems at the end, for those who will use it as a text. Appendices describe an inexpensive demo board and free debugging software. He shows you what to buy to set up a development lab and how to use it. .... If you want to buy one book that contains everything you need to learn about PIC chips, buy this one!

John's book is a great follow on to his original book, "Design with PIC Microcontrollers. The book is not a cut and paste solution (As are two other good books "Easy PIC'n" and "PIC'n Up The Pace") and is intended to teach the student how to best use the architecture. The intent of the book is to give the student enough theory to use the PIC18F452 and understand the design philosophy of the architecture. The book is a great compliment to the Microchip datasheet service as a "user's guide". Great examples of how the 18F452 architecture can be best utilized, well organized diagrams (Which, by the way do not require "flicking back and forth" any more that a typical technical book I've read ). The subject material covers all of the highlights of the PIC18F452, giving examples for typical usages of LCD displays, A/D, Interrupts, I/O pin considerations, timers, math subroutines, I2C/SMBus usage, UART, etc. There are supporting code template designed to suggest possible code organization. The book develops a very useful utility (SASM) to preprocess PIC assembly in an attempt to make assembly language more structured. The utility IS NOT required and the rest of the book may be read without using the utility. I had no problem obtaining the components for the included circuit board (All required parts can be purchased as a kit from Digi-Key at a discount) and found it very comparable to Microchip's own demo boards.

If having technical diagrams over the page to the corresponding text annoys you, then be prepared to be annoyed! The book doesn't get going really until chapter 3, however I found that having the technical figures (in most cases) not on the page or adjoining page, but having to flick back and forth a distraction to my concentration. The diagrams while helpful are a little confusing with the way in which they are layed out.

In some places after describing a method in addressing registers, the example uses an alternative - fine, if in the context of, there is more than one way to achieve this, but this is patently not the context here.

The book seems to be really designed to be part of a classroom tutorial and discussion.

Be ready to put in some extra concentration if your buying this book without resource to other literature.

On the whole the book is technically useful, the hardcover pleasant, but the placing of the diagrams really let the book down.