Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!mips!vaso
From: vaso@mips.COM (Vaso Bovan)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Advice on getting started...?
Summary: ARRL Handbook ; "Art of Electronics"
Message-ID: <28333@buckaroo.mips.COM>
Date: 27 Sep 89 10:18:12 GMT
References: <15836@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Reply-To: vaso@mips.COM (Vaso Bovan)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 30

In article <15836@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> sean@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sean P. Nolan) writes:
>
>I'm looking for advice from people here on how to get started actually DOING
>something with electronics. I've read a few books and have a pretty good 
>understanding of what various components (discrete and within ICs) do and how
>they work. But I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do now. Picking up random
>schematics, I can get the general jist of what's going on, but wouldn't be
>able to sit down and design a circuit for the life of me. All real-world 
>projects have resistors and capacitors flying all over the place in seemingly
>random places.  
>

The best non-mathematical treatment of practical electronic "design and 
analysis" is THE ART OF ELECTRONICS, 2nd Ed., Horowitz & Hill, Cambridge
University Press, 1989, in my opinion. This is appropriate for freshmen
university students with a couple of years of high school science.

There is also the old standby, THE ARRL HANDBOOK (FOR THE RADIO AMATEUR),
yearly editions, at a slightly lower level of "difficulty."

I'd say someone who has gone through these two books, especially the first,
has a better grasp of practical electronic design than the average newly-
graduated electronics engineer, minus the math of course.

There is also my old favorite: HOW TO BUILD AND USE ELECTRONIC DEVICES
WITHOUT FRUSTRATION, PANIC, MOUNTAINS OF MONEY, OR AN ENGINEERING DEGREE, 2nd
Ed., Hoenig, S.A., Little, Brown, & Co., 1980. This book may be out of print.


-Vaso  (electronics engineer)