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)