In the preface, the author says the purpose of this book is “to provide a complete and in-depth coverage of both hardware and software aspects of design with the 68000.…” The book certainly succeeds in this objective, including such diverse topics as PLD design methods and interfaces for coprocessor chips. It is divided into nine chapters:
68000 Architecture Overview
68000 Family Overview
Programming the 68000 Microprocessor
68000 Exception Processing
68010 and 68012 Architecture and Programming.
68020 Architecture and Programming
Coprocessor Support
Hardware Design with the 68000 and 68010
Hardware Design with the 68020
The book should be an invaluable reference for engineers designing 68000 systems. Apparently, however, the author also intends to market it as a textbook and states that “the information presented here is intended to be equally helpful to a student learning the subject.” Any student just starting with the 68000 should look elsewhere for an introductory text. Although this book describes all the component parts of a 68000 system in great detail, it contains no discussion on how to integrate these parts into a working system. For an introduction to 68000 design, I would suggest a book that starts with a minimal system such as Motorola’s 68000 Educational Computer Board and then builds on that system (see Clements [1]). This book is definitely for engineers with lots of design and troubleshooting experience.
