Introduction to Microprocessors and Microcontrollers

Rating:
Summary: Not enough of an update, but still excellent
Review: I reviewed the 1998 edition of this book, 'Introduction to Microprocessors,' (ITM) about a year ago. I gave that book five stars for bringing the internal workings of CPUs within the reach of the computer layman. This new 2004 edition, 'Introduction to Microprocessors and Microcontrollers,' (ITMAM) isn't quite the update I expected, but it's still a great book.

The major differences between ITM and ITMAM involve a few sections. First, material on the Alpha 21164 microprocessor is replaced by a discussion of the AMD Athlon XP. Second, two chapters on microcontrollers are added. Author John Crisp defines a microcontroller as essentially a microprocessor with some ROM and RAM on a single chip. Third, Crisp briefly discusses the innards of popular game consoles in ch 11. Finally, a short discussion of writing assembly language adds another layer to the new edition.

My expectations for ITMAM drove my four star rating. The older ITM book was a product of its late 1990s heritage, with the Pentium II processor described as Intel's latest offering. Unfortunately, I see many of the same references in the newer ITMAM book. On p 174, for example, we read about 'rumours of the Pentium II running at 400 MHz.' Although newer products, like the PIV, appear, I got the sense that the update process was not very thorough.

The microcontroller material was a welcome addition to ITMAM, but in the future the author might want to look at products by other manufacturers. There seems to be a vigorous community built around the Atmel AVR microcontroller, supported by plenty of open source programming tools and references. Overall, I still recommend reading the second edition of this book. I hope to see the third edition be a more thorough upgrade, perhaps with coverage of embedded technology and network processors?