PRENTICE HALL
ENGINEERING
TEXTBOOK
by Gene H. Miller
SOURCE FILES
EDITORS
ASSEMBLER
TRAINERS
GLOSSARY
LAB PROJECTS
LAB SETUP
ERRATA
HOMEPAGE
PRENTICE HALL
 
 

THE BOOK
Microcomputer Engineering is intended for use in a first course in microcomputers and microprocessors. Typical students are in engineering and related disciplines. Many practicing engineers who develop products using the Motorola 68HC11 chip have praised Microcomputer Engineering. Clear, simple language and many examples enhance readability. For more information, left click on Preface.pdf or TOC.pdf to view, using the Acrobat viewer in your browser, the preface or table of contents. Right click a link to download the file.

Microcomputer Engineering is most useful to those with background in digital logic circuits and some understanding of electronics. An extensive background in electronics is not required.

The best learning experience requires hands-on work with a hardware trainer. An appendix documents the Motorola 68HC11EVB board because it is a low-cost widely-used trainer. No other references to a specific trainer are made, so any of the many available trainers can be used with this book, although with greater effort. The trainer section of this Web site also has information on some other Motorola trainers. Search the Web for information on trainers from other manufacturers.

 

CHANGES IN THE SECOND EDITION
Many small changes were made to the first seven chapters. Most of the end-of-chapter exercises are new or modified. Some interrupt material was moved from Chapter 7 to Chapter 6, and then expanded to discuss both reentrancy and concurrency. The new Chapter 8 discusses the fundamentals of common real-time operating systems in simple language. The new Chapter 9 discusses the design and implementation of a real-time operating system for the 68HC11 and the application of the OS in the design of a simple weather station. All source code is provided and discussed as the design project progresses. The chapter begins by discussing the specifications of the weather station, the requirements of the operating system, and the necessary hardware for the weather station. Many of the I/O devices in the 68HC11 are used in this project. A modestly equipped laboratory will have the necessary hardware to implement this project. The source file for the weather station is available at this Web site to make it easy for students to get started on this quite complex project, and then modify and enhance the system.

In order to contain the cost of textbooks, Prentice Hall limits the number of pages that an author can use. To add the new material in Chapters 8 and 9 of the second edition, several sections from the first edition were omitted. All omitted material is available at this Web site for those who find it useful. Appropriate modifications make it convenient to print the materials to use as handouts, or for students to access directly from the Web.

 

MOTOROLA'S WEB SITE
Motorola's Web site has extensive technical information and email lists at www.mcu.motsps.com/hc11.

 

ADOBE'S WEB SITE
To download the freeware Acrobat viewers for the PC, Macintosh, or UNIX, go to the Adobe site at www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html.

 

THE MICROCOMPUTER ENGINEERING WEB SITE
Copyright

The materials available at this site are copyrighted by Gene H. Miller, 1998. You are free to use these materials as long as proper credit is given to the author.

 

PC/Macintosh/UNIX Downloading

Most PC-based Web browsers will download files when you right click on a link. Most Macintosh browsers download files when you click and hold the single mouse button. Most UNIX browsers download when you <shift> click the left mouse button. The text at this site only describes the PC approach.

 

Website Revision History

Initial site opening: September 15, 1998.


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