Author Topic: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations  (Read 5513 times)

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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #25 on: July 04, 2025, 10:55:49 am »
My 'goto' books for the 68000 back in the day were

  • 68000 sourcebook, by Alan Clements, ISBN 0070113211 - a compendium of Motorola and 3rd party 68K family datasheets, application notes and published articles, which in the days before the consumer internet were very difficult to acquire in any other format. Hardcover, slightly under A4 page size and a hefty 2.9 kg!
  • M68000 16/32-Bit Microprocessor Programmer's Reference Manual, by Motorola Inc - a book format datasheet covering the architecture and instruction set, with detailed instruction descriptions.  Softcover + small and light enough to flick through at the keyboard!

I don't have the "68000 sourcebook" by Alan Clements, but I read another book he wrote.
At the time accessing the university book area was the best and only way.

Today you download a pdf, or an ebook, or an ePub for your Kindle, and you read it comfortably wherever you want.

Talking about library, I don't have much space in my apartment, also because I dedicated an entire room (5m x 5m) to two racing bikes, their maintenance, parts, and tools, but I created a corner for books.

Just, I had to move the books from the attic, where I stored them, and build a brand-new bookcase. I didn't want to buy ne from Ikea, although I really like their standing desks, and their furniture in general. And I also really like the Swedish policy they have for using wood and recycling materials.

I preferred to build a bookcase myself, made with steel rods, which hold wooden parts.

I bought a few books, about UNIX, that I haven't read yet, about compilers, about the TCP/IP stack (TCP/IP illustrated), etc.
Not a lot, but they are all things that sooner or later you encounter when programming on GNU/Linux.

Then there's the CPU part...

... and only the part of books and motorola { 68hc11{A, E, F}, 68k{ 68008, 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, 68060, 683xx }, 88k, ppc{601, 603, 604, 750, 74xx, 4xx} } mips {I, II, III, IV, 32} manuals, we are about 80Kg of paper!

I had to reinforce the shelves with metal plates, they hold ~25kg each, and I had to divide the books over multiple shelves  :o :o :o
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #26 on: July 04, 2025, 10:58:52 am »
(yes, I still miss Coldfire stuff)
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow
 
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Online 5U4GB

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #27 on: July 04, 2025, 12:55:07 pm »
I had to reinforce the shelves with metal plates, they hold ~25kg each, and I had to divide the books over multiple shelves  :o :o :o

I've got bookcases with 20mm pine shelves and 30mm nosing, they're not going anywhere.  Never measured the loading on each shelf but the most density per shelf would be the journals which I'm sure are more than 30kg per shelf.  The floor in that room has extra bearers under it too.
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #28 on: July 05, 2025, 06:57:15 pm »
I've got bookcases with 20mm pine shelves and 30mm nosing, they're not going anywhere.
Never measured the loading on each shelf but the most density per shelf would be the journals which I'm sure are more than 30kg per shelf. 
The floor in that room has extra bearers under it too.

Pine shelves are better! But it's also better to be cautious when it comes to specs.
I'm using chipboard, literally shavings and sawdust mixed with resins.
The specs say no more than 30Kg.

The floor in that room has extra bearers under it too.

The floor is a problem, it doesn't have tiles, it's a wooden floor. It can't hold much concentrated weight, it risks breaking.
Better to distribute the weight over as large a support surface as possible.

This is reason #2 why I distributed the books on many more shelves.
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow
 

Online 5U4GB

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #29 on: July 06, 2025, 09:32:29 am »
Actually it wasn't always like that, the floor formerly had a used-to-be bearer under it.  The house is built against a slope and in the 50-odd years since it was built earth had piled up against it, meaning waterlogged clay.  So what was left of the first bearer was, from the side you could see, a solid beam, and from the other side a sort of C-shaped hollow with everything inside rotted out.

There's now several tons of of reinforced concrete under there holding things up.
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #30 on: July 27, 2025, 12:25:22 pm »
  • 68000 sourcebook, by Alan Clements, ISBN 0070113211 - a compendium of Motorola and 3rd party 68K family datasheets, application notes and published articles, which in the days before the consumer internet were very difficult to acquire in any other format. Hardcover, slightly under A4 page size and a hefty 2.9 kg!

+ ~2Kg for my shelf  :o :o :o

followed your advice, I asked to borrow a copy of that book from a local library.
Got replied: "sure, we have it, but it's looking for a new home.
If you donate a few pounds, you can take it home for ever ...
... otherwise it will be destroyed. It's too old and obsolete for the library
"

Hardcover, I also bought some glue and fixed the two or three things that needed fixing
It looks almost as good as new!
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow
 
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #31 on: November 08, 2025, 09:23:37 pm »

This book is great!
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow
 

Offline cfbsoftware

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #32 on: November 14, 2025, 11:15:49 pm »
I forgot to mention two others (they'll add 2.4Kg to your bookshelf) which have a lot of additional info on real world applications.

Another book by Steve Wiiliams: Programming the 68000, Sybex 1985.

A summary can be seen on the image of the back page here:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Programming-68000-Steve-Williams/dp/0895881330

and another one by Alan Clements: Microprocessor Systems Design, 68000 Hardware, Software and Interfacing

https://www.amazon.com.au/Microprocessor-Systems-Design-Alan-Clements/dp/0534948227

That book describes more of the hardware / electronic design as well as the software design of 68000 systems than the others.


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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #33 on: November 15, 2025, 12:24:03 am »
That second book is listed for $350 on Amazon, interested readers may want to skip it on there an go to Abebooks (also Amazon under an alias) where it's $5.70.
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #34 on: November 15, 2025, 02:32:23 pm »
That second book is listed for $350 on Amazon, interested readers may want to skip it on there an go to Abebooks it's $5.70.

Comparing two different editions, brand new vs second hand, ...
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow
 

Offline pqass

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #35 on: November 15, 2025, 04:51:26 pm »
An Introduction to 68000 Assembly Language - PENFOLD looks like an easy read.

Also found this list of both 6800 and 68K titles.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2025, 05:18:10 pm by pqass »
 
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Offline cfbsoftware

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #36 on: November 15, 2025, 11:37:55 pm »
While just investigating a S100 68000 PCB on eBay I was led to another 68000 hardware-oriented book:

68000 Microcomputer Systems: Designing and Troubleshooting by Alan Wilcox

archive.org has a pdf copy:

https://archive.org/details/68000-microcomputer-systems-wilcox
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: Motorola 68k Assembly Books? reviews, reccomandations
« Reply #37 on: November 16, 2025, 04:19:39 am »
68000 Microcomputer Systems: Designing and Troubleshooting by Alan Wilcox

That's great!
Found a paper copy, ex library.
Bought immediately :)
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