Embedded Systems Design

Rating:
Summary: Set your $50 on fire and save the frustration
Review: I have to say, I was very excited when I bought this book, thinking "this looks like a good book about embedded systems!". Until I opened it. It should have been titled "An Imcomplete Set of Cut and Pastes From White Papers". It's claim that it focuses on "practical" application is a joke. Please don't buy this book with the expectation that after reading it you will have several nifty breadboards that go "whirr" and do neato things. You won't. What you will have is a good excuse to write a scathing review of a book that like too many other technical manuals feels that there is some sort of virtue in paraphrasing technical documents, hitting it with a stapler and sending it off to the publisher with a wink and a smile, all the while claiming to be the definitive authority on whatever obsure subject they parasite from, causing us to waste time and money on yet another false promise.

Rating:
Summary: Set your $50 on fire and save the frustration
Review: I have to say, I was very excited when I bought this book, thinking "this looks like a good book about embedded systems!". Until I opened it. It should have been titled "An Imcomplete Set of Cut and Pastes From White Papers". It's claim that it focuses on "practical" application is a joke. Please don't buy this book with the expectation that after reading it you will have several nifty breadboards that go "whirr" and do neato things. You won't. What you will have is a good excuse to write a scathing review of a book that like too many other technical manuals feels that there is some sort of virtue in paraphrasing technical documents, hitting it with a stapler and sending it off to the publisher with a wink and a smile, all the while claiming to be the definitive authority on whatever obsure subject they parasite from, causing us to waste time and money on yet another false promise.

Rating:
Summary: Good reference material
Review: Somewhat dry in style, but very thorough. Particularly found the section that compared/contrasted different processor types useful. Like any book technology, some of these sections will become dated. I found information in this book that I could not find anywhere else.

Rating:
Summary: A fantastic book!
Review: Steve Heath's treatment of a complex topic is both sound and complete, as an introduction. But this book goes further! As well as being entirely understandable, Embedded Systems Design is also extremely practical. I liked the book because it gave an excellent overview of embedded systems, and then went on to cover how they related to various microprocessor architectures and various current Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOSs). A roadmap of embedded systems is hard to find!

However, I found that other books or other media will have to be located in order to go into specific microprocessors and RTOSs I have selected. Also, information on the development life cycle and In-Circuit Emulators will have to be located. Even so, an excellent coverage of the subject, and well worth looking at.

Rating:
Summary: A fantastic book!
Review: Steve Heath's treatment of a complex topic is both sound and complete, as an introduction. But this book goes further! As well as being entirely understandable, Embedded Systems Design is also extremely practical. I liked the book because it gave an excellent overview of embedded systems, and then went on to cover how they related to various microprocessor architectures and various current Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOSs). A roadmap of embedded systems is hard to find!

However, I found that other books or other media will have to be located in order to go into specific microprocessors and RTOSs I have selected. Also, information on the development life cycle and In-Circuit Emulators will have to be located. Even so, an excellent coverage of the subject, and well worth looking at.