The preface to this book gives its objective as follows:

The techniques of interfacing are based on fundamental electrical engineering principles, advanced microfabrication rules, and computer hardware and software design concepts. It is the aim of this book to tie together these different areas and develop interfacing skills based on practical design experience and meaningful, relevant examples.

A brief survey of the book’s chapters will give a flavor of its content. Following a brief overview, chapter 2 deals with the electrical concerns of interfacing. This includes a discussion of transmission line theory (based on the RLC model), a consideration of noise sources and noise reduction techniques, and coverage of grounding techniques. The chapter is too elementary for someone with a background in electrical engineering, but may not be appropriate for someone without such a background.

Chapter 3, which deals with bus interfacing, is more the type of subject matter one would expect in a book with this title. The chapter is an excellent survey of bus design issues and covers both synchronous and asynchronous buses. Chapter 4 is an equally readable and concise survey of communications techniques, covering such standards as RS-232-C, RS-449, HDLC, and IEEE 488. While both chapters are well done, it is likely that anyone interested in a book that covers the former either will not be interested in the latter at the same time or will seek the information in a data communications text.

Chapter 5 deals with the IBM PC and PS/2 and with 80386 processor interfacing. There is a significant amount of well-presented detail here. Among the topics covered are the RAM interface, the I/O channel, the SDLC controller interface, the printer adapter, and the 80836 cache memory interface. The chapter includes a large number of logic diagrams and a bus timing diagram. The author leads the reader through the steps involved in various operations, the function of each pin, and the timing constraints.

Chapter 6 covers the topic of analog-to-digital conversion and includes a number of examples.

Chapter 7 deals with local area networks. The chapter is essentially a discussion of LAN media access control techniques. At the end the author mentions that there are a number of controller boards available for interfacing microprocessors to the LAN medium. Again, there are better sources of information on LAN technology, and this chapter seems out of place in this book.

The final chapter is called “Software Interfacing.” Here the book gets into the topic of writing I/O drivers in various languages. The author briefly introduces the following languages and gives examples using each: BASIC, FORTRAN, Pascal, Ada, LISP, PL/M-86, and C. While the concepts here are useful, a single chapter is too little for those who have never done systems programming and too much for those who have.

It is difficult to assess this book. It has some useful and interesting parts, but a considerable fraction of the book seems likely not to appeal to most of its potential readers. However, the useful parts are well written, informative, and comprehensive, given the scope and length of the book.