Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu (David Palmer) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Advice on getting started...? Message-ID: <12095@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> Date: 29 Sep 89 05:07:42 GMT References: <975@serene.UUCP> Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu Reply-To: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (David Palmer) Organization: California Institute of Technology Lines: 27 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 I got started, 15 years ago or so, by picking up some 74XX ICs and a breadboard from Radio Sh**, reading "The TTL Cookbook" (By Don Lancaster, I believe) and some 555 (timer) technotes, and just plunging in by doing simple things. Now I'm an experimental physicist making $12,000 a year and living in Pasadena. Since TTL is showing its age, you may want to use CMOS instead, but the 555 is still a great chip for making an LED blink. You don't have to know how to bias a transistor (I didn't learn until 6 years ago), but Op-amps are easier anyway. As long as you laugh when someone mentions "Ohm's Three Laws", and have a rough notion of what a capacitor does, you are ready to begin learning to use ICs. David Palmer palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu ...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer "Direct quotes don't have to be exact, or even accurate. Truth is as irrelevant to a newspaper as it is to a court of law" - Judge Alarcon, 9th circuit court of appeals (paraphrased)