- Douglas Hall, Microprocessors and Interfacing. Long-standing classic for 8086 and the Intel-family interfacing chips.
- Kenneth Ayala, The 8051 Microcontroller and Embedded Systems. The 8051 standard reference, used in classrooms for decades.
- Muhammad Ali Mazidi, The 8051 Microcontroller and Embedded Systems Using Assembly and C. Excellent companion, leans practical.
- Barry Brey, The Intel Microprocessors. Comprehensive 8086-through-Pentium walk.
- Joseph Yiu, The Definitive Guide to ARM Cortex-M3/M4. Authoritative on modern Cortex-M.
- John Catsoulis, Designing Embedded Hardware. Great cross-architecture treatment of the embedded landscape.
- Datasheets. The 8086, 8051, 8255, 8254, 8259 datasheets are short, classic documents — read them. The STM32 reference manuals are 2000 pages — read the chapters relevant to whatever you are doing.
section 13 of 131 min read