[Home Page] - [Reviews Main]

Embedded Systems Programming in C and Assembly by John Forest Brown Not Recommended

ISBN: 0-442-01817-7       Publisher: Van Nostrand Reinhold       Pages: 304pp & disk       Price: £41.50

Categories:   embedded systems     assembler

Reviewed by Chris Hills in C Vu 6-5 (Jul 1994)

This is a problem because the example the author uses is a missile control system. Parts of the book are very specific to the 1553 bus and its hardware. Whilst the PC adapter boards mentioned may be available in the US I have not seen them available in the UK.

There is a comparison of Motorola and Intel philosophies and architecture. There is some explanation of embedded environments and tools, although the coverage of the tools is not to any depth. Design and testing are covered superficially. I cannot see the target audience. The level of the information jumps from novice to expert. Anyone who needs an illuminated push button switch explained will be lost with other areas.

There is a large amount of source code in the book, which is surprising as there is a source disk included. I am not sure why the code is on disk as it needs specific hardware (1553 adapter).

The whole book is American with a vengeance. Everything is tied to MIL-STD- 1553B (A US military standard). The assumption seems that one will be programming for the Government of The United States of America. Homes are 'American homes' companies are 'American companies'.

The book is a good idea that does not really work. There are pearls of wisdom but when the source code and waffle are removed there is not a lot left. Not recommended.

The book is published by ITP. I have noticed that all of their books that I have seen recently have a disk with them. It can be done. Other publishers take note.