This book is designed for a first course in microprocessors or it may be used as a reference for practicing engineers. The book is unique in presenting a balanced, integrated topic coverage of assembly language programming, microcontroller programming via the C language, and hardware interfacing. Programming topics are discussed using both assembly language and C, while hardware interfacing examples use C to keep code complexity low and improve clarity. A goal of this book is to prepare students for advanced courses in embedded systems or computer architecture. As such, the topic coverage is wide, with a mixture of software and hardware topics. The assembly language programming topics emphasize the linkage between C language constructs and their assembly language equivalents, so that students clearly understand the impact of C coding choices in terms of execution time and memory requirements. Hardware interface topics included in the textbook cover the fundamentals (parallel, serial, interrupts, A/D, D/A) using devices that do not require an extensive circuits background. Laboratory Projects These provide an extensive off-the-shelf lab experience (13 experiments) for using the PIC18: one experiment on introductory computer architecture topics, four experiments on PIC18 assembly language, and eight hardware experiments. The hardware experiments require the read to breadboard a PIC18F242 system that includes a serial EEPROM, external 8-bit Digital-to-Analog converter, and RS232 interface, and an infrared receiver module. The hardware labs cover all major subsystems on the PIC18: A/D, timers, asynchronous serial interface, and the 12C interface. All hardware labs are programmed in C, using the HI-TECH PICC18 compiler. A supplemental website (www.reesemicro.com) has book C code examples that have been modified to be compatible with both the Microchip MCC18 and HI-TECH PICC18 compilers, as well as lecture notes and sample quizzes.