The 68HC11 devices are more powerful and more expensive than the 68HC08 microcontrollers and are used in automotive applications, barcode readers, hotel card key writers, amateur robotics, and various other embedded systems.

[4] Internally, the HC11 instruction set is backward compatible with the 6800 and features the addition of a Y index register.

In the early 1990s Motorola produced an evaluation board kit for the 68HC11 with several UARTs, RAM, and an EPROM.

[5] The standard monitor for the HC11 family is called BUFFALO, "Bit User Fast Friendly Aid to Logical Operation".

BUFFALO is available for most 68HC11 family derivatives as it generally only depends upon having access to a single UART (SCI, or Serial Communications Interface, in Motorola parlance).