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Title: Programming & Customizing PICmicro Microcontrollers by Myke Predko ISBN: 0-07-136172-3 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics Pub. Date: 04 December, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.74 (47 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Indespensible but flawed
Comment: If you are new to PICs, this book is great. Background info, assembly programming concepts, and plenty of examples got me up and running quickly. The style is much more enjoyable and accessible than that of some other PIC books I've struggled through. This book is worth the price, so I highly recommend it.
I wish I could give the book 5 stars, but the numerous of errors are very distracting. By "numerous," I mean "several per page." I've even found errors in the code--fortunately, some are so flagrant that even a beginner like me would notice.
Two things (other than copyediting) I'd like to see in the next edition:
1. The book could use a "quick start" section at the beginning, telling you which chapters to read (in which order) depending on your skills and interests. I ended up reading through lots of technical data on high-end PICs before arriving at some easy programming sections, and there was frequent repetition.
2. The appendices provide much information, but they lack something important: an all-inclusive table of assembly commands and their parameter types. When I first started out, I had to flip through the text of Chap. 4 quite a bit to hunt down the command I wanted.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good Book
Comment: I am a professional embedded programmer. I purchased this book so that I could get up to speed on the Microchip PIC architecture and its assembly language.
I read the first 105 pages of the book in detail so that I'd have a basic understanding of the PIC micro architecture for the mid-range family. (I acquired an MPLAB-ICD, from Microchip, which is based on the 16F877 -midrange chip.) Afterwards I went straight to the section in chap. 14 on the MPLAB-ICD and got the ICD kit running.
After that, I went to chapter 15 and did the first 10 experiments using the MPLAB-ICD. Basically, the course that I followed allowed me to get up to speed in the shortest amount of time. Most of these experiments were designed for the 16F84 but they're all easily modified to run on the 16F877.
My findings:
1. The book is sprinkled with spelling and grammatical errors, however so is the Microchip documentation on their chips - this is more frustrating because you're taking Microchip's word as absolute truth.
2. It is nice that Myke included the El-Cheapo programmer circuit board. However, given the time and cost associated with building it, I'd rather use the MPLAB-ICD. However (there's always a however) the El-Cheapo programs quite a variety while the ICD only does the 16F877. (Note: Microchip has a new ICD that programs all or most of their chips. It's low cost and is already built.)
3. Unlike other reviewers, I found the code that I ran to be reliable - I found no blatant errors in the code - errors that would keep the code from running "as advertised." I copied my code from the CD - this was a time-saver.
4. The book is way too long to read from cover to cover. I'd die of boredom if I tried to do this. When I was going through the first 10 experiments, I skipped to the earlier chapters to dig for information. This is a fact of life when programming microcontrollers. You typically don't read whole data books on a microcontroller. Fortunately, I found the Microchip data sheets to have most of the information I was looking for. This minimized my searches in Myke's book.
6. Myke should have provided a road map to assist people with different levels of experience get up to speed in the shortest time possible.
7. To be fair, the book was comprehensive and I was able to find answers to most of my PIC architecture/assembly questions.
8. The index is not easy to read. Take a look at it and you'll understand what I mean. Sometimes, I felt like I needed a magnifying glass. The topics and their subtopics are in the same small font and the subtopics are often numerous - sometimes extending to the next page. Myke, for the next edition fix this.
9. Chapter 13 has quite a deal of information on the YAP-II programmer. This information would have been better kept on the CD so as not to pack the book with too much information.
10. I am specifically interested in the electronic thermometer project on page 957. For my application Myke's approach is not adequate, however it may be fine for you. Regardless, I enjoyed seeing his approach and comparing it to mine. Myke uses a thermistor as part of an RC circuit which is charged to 5 volts. The capacitor is then discharged through the thermistor to a known voltage (2.5v) and the time constant for the circuit is determined from this. This measured time is directly related to the thermistor's resistance which is directly related to the temperature. After reading Myke's book, I implemented a 16 by 16 signed multiply on the 16F877. I used a least squares curve fitting program to derive a cubic equation for the thermistor's data (same one Myke used) and implemented this equation on the PIC using fixed point arithmetic.
I used information in Chap 15 to get the serial port going - by cutting and pasting. I had a friend write a Visual Basic app to display the temperature on a PC. Armed with the PIC information from Myke's book, I implemented a temperature controller that can accurately hold the temp. in an oven to better than 2 Deg. F. (with minimal over/undershoot) and reports the temperature to a PC. The approach I took yields greater precision and requires less parts however Myke's approach is simpler. Maybe I'll write a book on this...
I recommend getting this book if you want to get started with the PIC microcontroller - it's a good reference...
Rating: 2
Summary: riddled with errors
Comment: Just as bad as his 8051 book in the quality of the English. He probably knows how to program the PIC MCUs, but I couldn't stick around long enough to find out. The book desperately needs an editor, and the publisher should be ashamed of letting a semi-literate author get away with this. It reflects on them as much as on him. The bad grammar and spelling can distract one from the technical errors. And there are plenty of those, partly oversight and partly the author's own shallow understanding.
Just opening at random to pp. 178-179, on clock oscillators I learn that "applications that require extreme accuracy allow the use of cheaper clock designs." How about "do not require"? Then I learn that "an error of 30% to the target speed are not unheard of." Sure, that's just English, but gee whiz, it's that way through the book. Then I learn that the circuit uses a "Schmidt trigger," presumably the German version of the well-known Schmitt trigger. Lower on the page I find "Crystals and ceramic resonators delay the propagation of a signal a set amount of time. This set amount is dependent on how the crystal is cut." If ever an author were asked to demonstrate that he hasn't a clue about how a crystal works, he couldn't find a better way. And so forth. It's that way on every page.
He probably knows the PIC processors pretty well, and I won't take that away from him. One pass through the book by a competent copy editor, and another by a real electronic expert could easily turn this into a much shorter, coherent, accurate, and useful book, but neither of those has happened.
All his books seem to have a strange combination of rave reviews and pans, with very little in between. That's unnatural, and the explanation that jumps to mind is bothersome.
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Title: PIC Microcontroller Project Book by John Iovine ISBN: 0071354794 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics Pub. Date: 18 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: PICmicro Microcontroller Pocket Reference by Michael Predko, Myke Predko ISBN: 0071361758 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics Pub. Date: 17 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: PIC in Practice by David W. Smith ISBN: 0750648120 Publisher: Newnes Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
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Title: Pic: Your Personal Introductory Course by John Morton ISBN: 0750650389 Publisher: Newnes Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: The Quintessential Pic Microcontroller (Computer Communications and Networks) by Sid Katzen ISBN: 185233309X Publisher: Springer Verlag Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $56.95 |
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