Motorola used to have some actual TUTORIAL documents on some of their microcontrollers, for example this one on the (now obsolete) 68HC05: (alas, the online HTML version seems to have fallen apart) I *think* this is the same as the very nice binder of info I received with one of the $68.05 demo board kits a long time ago; IIRC, it seemed pretty good. I can't find anything similar for the 68hc08. Wasn't the HC12 line supposed to be the microcontroller version of the 6809? Or was that the hc16? The coldfire (32bit) chips are the logical followons to the 68000 series, which also had quite an elegant architecture. If I had to make a snap judgment, I'd say that Mot/freescale makes really good chips, but doesn't quite "get" the small processor embedded market. They'll "introduce" a line of chips with a matrix of neat features, some of which are unobtainium, and discontinue the chips that didn't get major design wins (pissing off the people who happened to pick those chips.) Microchip doesn't make chips nearly as elegant, but they DO "get" the market... (all that said, I seem to recall that the 6811 and 6809s had quite a successful run in "personal computer" and "educational" markets. The 6809 appeared in Tandy's Color Computer, and the 6811 in several robotics oriented boards from MIT. And the earlier 6800 processors had their part in the early days of "home" microcomputers. I wonder how they managed to screw up SO badly in between then and now...) BillW -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist