This book will only take you so far. Has good chapter on assembly language programming, and also lots of hardware interface examples, even a few introductory type projects at the end of the text, but one big problem that will hold *ANY* beginner back. The source code examples presented is not provided with the text and is not available to download from the web, making it harder to actually try out the examples presented in the text. When contacting the author about getting the source code, his comments were "I don't have the source code. I would need to retype the examples." I actually wonder if the author himself actually got any of the samples to work..... Don't waste your time and $$ with this. Get something more practical like "Walter Fuller's" book. Lots of interface example, hardware construction tips and full source provided along with a mailing list of people that actually got that system up and running.