Programming the Propeller with Spin: A Beginner's Guide to Parallel Processing (Tab Electronics)

I've have experience with other microcontrollers, but wanted a quick way to get started with the Propeller. There aren't many books on the topic, so I decided to buy this one. I'm sad to say that I was disappointed in the quality of the content and the quality of the book printing/binding.First we will talk about the quality of the content:-The programs included are a bit long-winded for clarity, which is fine. What isn't okay is comments on lines that were copied and pasted and never updated (i.e. not changing high to low in a comment).-The terminology used is sometimes wrong and the schematics often show LEDs backwards. Pinouts for LCD experiments change between codes forcing code alteration or re-wiring.- One entire chapter had figure captions with the wrong figures! A once over of a pre-print should have solved this.- The code is "available online", which generally means a download of a zip file containing folders of neatly organized code. The code for this book is all crushed together as text on a single webpage forcing you to hunt for the portion you are looking for.- Photos of the experiments show a setup on a messy workbench with towels, cell phones, and other misc. debris crowding the view. A clear photo should be taken in a clean, well contrasted area.- The content is FAR too repetitive, sometimes on purpose, sometimes as a result of what looks like quickly and poorly edited paragraphs.- The given parts list is incomplete and quoted prices are sometimes far off the mark. Some parts say "Available from XXXX", but contain no part number.Comments on the quality of the binding/printing:- I read this book cover to cover ONCE, moving it between my home and office a hand full of times. A couple of the center pages are already about to come out!- Printing resolution is acceptable, formatting is okay... some layout tweaks are to be desired.Overall:I expect far more from technical books in terms of content and I expect FAR more from a publisher like McGraw Hill. The only reason this is two stars is that I was able to get some basic syntax from the examples and get my own projects running with help of someone familiar with SPIN. The book needs to be re-printed with major revisions to be considered a valid manuscript. In the epilog the author blatantly states: "I am a beginner as far as the Propeller system goes, and I found it rather difficult to understand what was going on in many of the programs I studied." WHY is a beginner writing such a text? While I appreciate Mr. Sandhu's idea of putting out this much needed book, I can't say that it was executed well.

I am reading the book at this time but I would like to go ahead and leave my personal impressions. I am a Propeller user (I have twelve different boards with a Propeller). I program in assembler and SPIN. I am very pleased with the layout and coverage of the book. It is for beginners but it overlaps into a few advanced areas which is good for extending your boundaries. It is well worth the price. I have one concern and that is about the illustrations, particularly line drawings, program listings and others that are printed too small and in a tiny, spidery font that is difficult to make out without a magnifying glass. It would help if Mr. Harprit would make an eBook version available. I know that I would be willing to pay an extra fee on top of the book cost to get such a version. I would not mind if it was a no-copying secured type ebook.That said, I wish Mr Harprit well with his book and I do recommend it. Propeller books are always appreciated.

Note, I'm only halfway through, but I am reading it pretty closely. This book really uses redundancy (let's call it a teaching mechanism), but this gets irritating very quickly. By about the 7th chapter, we have been told it seems like a dozen times that the Propeller's eight cogs are absolutly identical. Halfway through the book, we are still looking at the same simple LED blink example listed over and over, with the same explanation about PUB and PRI methods. The term Object is defined several times, and so on.Also, there is some poor proofreading. In a (repeated) schematic, an LED "points" the wrong way (or is connected to the wrong power rail). One reused example code wherein a couple of code line changes are made still has the comments against them for the previous example. A chapter supposedly dealing with thouroughly understand a single gog concludes mysteriously with a multi-cog example. A photo is referenced as a schematic, and vice versa.But, if you can get past the irritations, it's not too bad. I have gained some insight, and expect the hardware interfacing chapters to be better.

I am a complete novice working with microprocessors for the first time. Dr. Sandhu put me on to the Propeller chip as a possible good fit to satisfy my needs. I purchased his book and have been working my way through it. I am old, stubborn, and I find, to my frustration, not as mentally supple as I once was. Dr. Sandhu has done as thorough a job as I think is possible to introduce a complicated subject to those less experienced in electronics. There are some areas where the editors did not faithfully reflect Dr. Sandhu's work. This does not alter the fact that this book is full of practical, useful information, laid out in a logical manner. The writing style pulls you forward through the capabilities of the Propeller chip towards an interesting list of demonstration projects. It is obvious Dr. Sandhu put a great amount of effort into writing this book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Parallax Propeller.

If you are new to the Propeller, microcontrollers, or electronics in general, this should be your first Propeller book. At the time of this review, there are only 3 other books: The Manual, the Official Guide, and Hydra Programming. Those are fine books that you will want to read eventually, but they are for more experienced people. If you are just starting out, this will be the FIRST book you'll want to read. It's just the basics for beginners, the "Hello World" of sorts. Simple examples that are easy to put together quickly.The Lab Book which comes with the Propeller Education Kit is also a great place to start. And it's a good read too. Once you get into the Counters chapters of the PEK Lab Book however, it quickly begins to feel like more advanced material.You'll be glad to have this book as a companion, especially if you are a beginner.

If you are new to micro-controllers and want a very gentle introduction to the Parallax Propeller then this does the job.I had an incorrect mental model of how the Propeller cogs work; through the step by step explanation in this book I gained a correct (well correct my just be my current working model) understanding.The code examples are available from the authors website. The only disadvantage is the files appear as text on the screen and are not easy to grab as lines overlap. Nor are the files available in a zip or similar. I emailed the author and he kindly dent me a zip of the lot.The program files are fully explained in the text including the interaction between code and the world outside.The book does not attempt to cover PASM assembly programming, but doesn't not make the claim to do so. This is a book designed with real world projects in mind, with reusable object code and the teaching as to how it all joins together.For me I found the description of how the programming language worked over simplified - but I've been writing code since early 1980's. I got the book because I was confused about the operation of the cogs.I've no regrets. Does as it says on the cover.

Not many books on this subject, as it goes this is not a bad one. I found the style of writing slightly irritating where the author would labour a point just that bit too much.

Written clearly for anyone interested in multi-core programming, with examples and projects using the Propeller CPU from Parallax.

Gleich vorweg sei gesagt: Wer den Propeller-Mikrocontroller nicht kennt bzw. mit ihm nicht arbeiten möchte, braucht dieses Buch nicht zu kaufen.Dieses Buch ist - wie der Titel schon verrät - für den von der Firma Parallax Inc. entwickelten und hergestellten 8-core-Kontroller "Propeller" geschrieben. In 29 Kapiteln stellt der Autor den Kontroller, einige Propeller-gestützte Boards, die als Freeware erhältliche Arbeitsumgebung "Propeller Tool" und die Programmiersprache "SPIN" an vielen praktischen Beispielen vor. Unter anderem werden folgende Bausteine bzw. Themen der Elektronik angesprochen: LED, Taster, Potentiometerabfrage, Frequenz- und Pulsmessung, 7-Segment-LED-Anzeige, 2-zeiliges LCD-Display, Servo- und Schrittmotoransteuerung sowie ein "Gravity Sensor".Alle Experimente werden ausführlich besprochen und lassen sich sofort praktisch umsetzen.Leider wird auf die Sprache "C" und die ebenfalls freie Software "Simple IDE" der o g. Firma in diesem Buch nicht eingegangen. Das mag auch am Erscheinungsjahr des Buches im Jahr 2010 liegen.

Selbst ein Anfänger wie ich langweilt sich beim Lesen dieses Buches. Zig Wiederholungen der gleichen Thematik. Wo genauere Erklärungen notwendig wären fehlen diese. Klarer Fehlkauf. Enthielte das Buch nur die tatsächliche Information die man daraus lernen kann wäre die Seitenzahl drastisch gekürzt....Jedes Tutorial im Netz ist besser.