This third edition of a late-1980s-style 68000 microprocessor book is written primarily for electrical engineers who want to delve into low-level 68000 programming, despite the author’s observation that “Other textbooks rarely pay equal attention to both hardware and software. This book was written to give equal treatment to both.” Antonakos does not discuss high-level programming considerations to the extent that Ford and Topp [1] do, however. Instead of illustrating basic principles using a commercial 68000-based microcomputer, Antonakos describes the design and construction of his own 68000-based system from the bottom up. Indeed, this is the book’s best feature (chapter 11, “Building a Working 68000 System”). Another good feature of the book is the accompanying disk, which contains all source files mentioned in the text, along with a 68K assembler and emulator for DOS PCs. This third edition has stopped short of mentioning the 68060, and the Apple Macintosh examples are largely restricted to the obsolete 512K Mac.

In an earlier comparative review on 68000 programming books, I concluded that the best books available at that time were Ford and Topp, Leventhal et al. [2], and Harman and Lawson [3], in that order. Nothing has appeared in the intervening years to alter my opinion in this regard. Indeed, it has only been strengthened by the publication of the second edition of Ford and Topp in 1992 [4].