This book Covers: Architecture, software and interfacing techniques for these 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors, Intel 8086,80386 and motorola 68000,68020

I purchased this book hoping to learn more about the x86 and 68000 CPU families and programming for those architectures. This book gives plenty of necessary background information regarding the internal workings of these CPU's, while being well-written and easy to follow. The chapters are ordered in a logical fashion, firstly introducing the reader to the high level, software programming, aspect of the architecture, and then in later chapters providing very detailed information regarding the physical structure and workings of the CPU. This allows readers to easily read through the topic of their interest without being overwhelmed by other information. Although I have not read entirely through the book, I find it to be a valuable source of reference. This book provides thorough descriptions of the CPU's instructions, internal registers, memory interfacing and other important CPU-specific information. It also gives many examples, and regular exercises, for each topic covered which helps the reader to memorize what they had just read. The charts are also very clear and make the explanations a lot easier to understand. Protected mode for 80386 is clearly covered and well-explained with easy to understand diagrams and memory exercises. I recommend this book to all people with a keen interest in CPU architectures. Beginners, like myself, could try other assembly language guides, many of which are available through the internet, as this book, despite being well-written, may be a bit too much for a primer in assembly language for a beginner. But no matter at what stage you are, this book will always be a great reference guide.

Now that I have completed my digital design course and using this required text at San Jose State University (home of the second author), I would like to comment on it.

There are more mistakes in this 3rd edition than in the 2nd edition. Because of the errors, I found it hard to learn for two reasons. Either I've made the mistake (granted the book is correct), or that the authors and editors failed to do their jobs so I have to seek outside help. Even the solutions in the back of the book has obvious errors! I don't believe learning from and paying [this kind of money] for this book is fair to any customer! SJSU students have used the 2nd and 3rd editions as REQUIRED text and paid dearly. (I don't believe that students should be FORCED to buy a book because it is written by a faculty member, especially one this bad! )

Suggestions and recommendations to the authors to correct blatant errors and make improvements were not implemented by the 3rd edition. How can a book create errors from one edition to another? Let me give one simple example. Figure 10-13 on page 470 has the input and output configurations for the 8255 reversed in the 3r edition BUT is correct in the 2nd edition. I also believe a spelling checker was not used as there are typos throughout the book.

Granted there are new materials in the latter part of the book, the older core part of the book should be error-free by the third edition. It has been an extreme headache to study from this book. It has been frustrating, to say the least. To those who wish to waste their money and time, please buy this book. There are other texts less costly and probably better written. The authors need to be more proactive in producing the best possible product when their reputation is on the byline!

this book has been very useful in learning the basic concepts involved in the creation of a microprocessor.it has been presented in a way understandable by stdents coming from non-computing backgrounds

I am taking this class at FDU (where Professor Triebel is teaching this class) and I find that its a very organized text.

there may be a few errors here and there, but it also helps to simply ask the Author for help regarding any possible errors.

Professor Triebel retired from Intel and has intimate knowledge of the 8088/8086 core (as well as the new Itanium) so he's more than qualified in this field.

We are also taking the lab to accompany this class (there's a separate lab manual) and that pretty much bridges the gap between theory and practical applications. The reason being that you can learn the theory behind the instructions in the lecture, but the lab allows you to see the instructions in action.