Title: Flow Design for Embedded Systems

Review Date: July 2000
Author: Barry Kauler
Pub: R&D Books
ISBN: 0-87930-555
COST: $39.95 USD
DISK/CD:disk
Cover: soft
Pages: 270
Keywords: Embedded  design 
Recommendation:  none
Source:- accu book list

 

 

This book promises much… a CASE tool with automatic C generation and an RTOS as well as the book, Too good to be true?  Well, yes and no.  The tools are there but when I looked on the authors web site http://goofee.com/ I found that the GOOFEE tool, the main tool used in the book, had been superseded with the GOOSEE tool also the RTOS has been improved.  Both these are available for free download along with most of the information in the book.  The web site contains additional related information particularly for the 8051 and X86 family.

This book could be very useful as it gives a complete CASE tool with tutorial for the method, assembler and RTOS.  If it were not for the fact that all the (new)  sw, and most of the notes, in the book can be freely downloaded I would have recommend this book to hobby users working with 8051’s as there is an RTOS for them (but is not pre-emptive).

 

As a method the systems in the book have merit but look at the web site and download the sw rather than buying the book.  However, whilst the ideas are ok, the tool is not really up to modern industrial standards so students may be better with the demo versions of industrial strength tools which are the ones they are likely to meet in Industry.  All the text in the book is closely related to the GOOFEE tool  so there is no other reason to buy the book unless you are using that tool.

 

 I have to question the wisdom of a publisher doing a book where all the information is, and has been for some years, freely available from the authors web site.  Especially as new (different) versions of the tools were released at a similar time to the book.  This makes the book obsolete.