Programming the Motorola M68HC12 Family

Rating:
Summary: A Must Have Book for the HC12 and HCS12
Review: I've read almost every HC12 book there is, and found this book to be one of the best. Gordon Doughman is a long-time Motorola employee and was intimately involved with creating the HC12 chip. His inside knowledge clearly shows. For instance, his cycle-by-cycle explanation of the analog-digital conversion process is the clearest I have ever read. He gives equally great coverage of the other peripherals on the HC12 chip. Its like a hardware manual written in plain english.

He covers the older A4 and B32 HC12 chips, but most of what he says is relevant to the newer HCS12 chips that Motorola is pushing. There is some assembly code, but not alot. He skillfully uses the code snippets to illustrate how to use the various features and peripherals of the HC12, and you just don't need a lot of code to do this.

This is not a beginners book - its about the HC12, not about beginning assembly programming. Nevertheless, his writing style is clear and relaxed, and if you have a basic background in microcontrollers/assembly, you will find it easy to follow.

If you are going to work with the HC(S)12, this is an essential book. The other recommended HC12/HCS12 book would be the one by Cady and Sibigtroth (another Motorola employee) entitled "Software and Hardware Engineering: Motorola M68HC12".

Rating:
Summary: Vety good book!
Review: This book covers all aspects of programming with HC12. I like that it goes beyond just instruction set and software examples but also covers very specific details of hardware. The author definitely knows the subject very well and did a very good job presenting all this in very succinct and clear manner. The only thing that annoyed me (and annoyed a lot) that index is messed up - it doesn't match the content. I use this book mainly as a reference and without index it takes more time to find what I need. Still the content of the book is very good.