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Microprocessors and Computer Organization

  1. Mar 25, 2005 #1
    I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this question, but if I'm wrong I'm sure a mod will move my post...

    Ok, so I'm taking a class called "Microprocessors and Computer Organization," and it's killing me! First off, it is incredibly boring (assembly language :yuck: :cry:) , and secondly... the textbook SUCKS!!

    The chips we are using are the Motorola 68HC11 & 68HC12. The book we are using is "Introduction to Embedded Microprocessor Systems" by Jonathan W. Valvano. This book is terribly organized and hard to read.

    Is there another book that uses this chip to explain concepts that you guys know about? I am dying for another textbook!!

  2. jcsd
  3. Mar 25, 2005 #2
    Assembly is a little boaring as compared to more modern languages, but it is good to learn it. Then you can become a "Great One" who can program asm, code that runs extreamly fast, I mean EXTREAMLY FAST. About the text book thing, I dont know any books but I am sure there are a lot of resources on the web about it. Just do some google's.
  4. Mar 25, 2005 #3
    There are some HC11 books out there. The HC11 has been around for some time now and has been a toy for hobbiests for 20 years or so.

    Amazon search: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/s...e=books/ref=xs_ap_l_xgl14/103-0267509-9414278

    Download the HC11 literature(hc11 reference manual and particular doc for the chip you are playing with) directly from freescale. The HC11 docs are good(not as good as PIC docs IMO but good none the less).

    Here are some others to look into


    Now, if you're trying to learn the concepts independent of a particular processor then you may want to look into books covering 8051's, Atmel AVR's Microchip PICs(these are cool but the AVR's are better IMO), MC68332's(you can do a lot with one of these I gar-on-tee), H8's... There are dozens and dozens of processors to learn the basics with and a number of books for each.

    As far as ASM goes, if you want to fiddle with microC's then get used to ASM. There are C compilers for these chips but you REALLY have to work to write C code as fast as ASM code. You REALLY have to work hard to write C code as compact as ASM code. Both can be done but require more thought of how the processor actually handles information. ASM is boring, but essential for microC's especially when you look at the available memory in most of these little computers.

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