Nowadays, microprocessors have become an essential tool in a widely set of industrial applications. Because of this, Engineering students, especially Industrial Engineering ones, should be properly taught in its use by implementing sufficiently interesting procedures. The authors consider that these procedures should allow students to manage most of the features that a standard microprocessor offers, such as I/O ports, timer counters, serial communication, or external interruptions. In this way, this article describes a wide and reasonable‐priced set of microprocessor‐based procedures that forces Industrial Engineering students to be familiarized with the described features. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 12: 145–151, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20015