I've been browsing his free sample chapter on basic electromechanical devices[1], and I must say that it is incredibly well written. Take a look at his explanation of switch bounce:
If you pry open a typical switch, you’ll probably find that its internals are quite complex. Inside, there might be a small spring-loaded roller that travels over a tiny hump or an intricately shaped metal leaf that “pops” when pressed firmly enough. The purpose of these mechanisms is to keep the switch firmly in place until sufficient force is applied, at which point it snaps immediately into the new position. This nonlinear behavior provides satisfying tactile feedback, reduces sensitivity to vibration and other accidental inputs, and prevents the switch from resting in any state other than “fully off” or “fully on.”
The flip side of this approach is that once the mechanism gives in, things happen quickly: The contacts are pulled apart or slammed together at a considerable speed. Because metal is elastic, this motion produces some vibration that manifests as electrical glitches lasting from tens of microseconds to a few milliseconds. The effect is known as switch bounce.
I know about switch bounce but I've never seen it explained so clearly. Usually electronics books will say "mechanical switches will bounce before settling" and will then describe a circuit or algorithm to deal with it. What's always missing is a plain English discussion of the why and how.
I checked out that chapter because the critical topic after switch bouncing is debouncing! ctrl-f says not that chapter tho. Lots of other good stuff tho!
For the amount of marketing and praise this book has gotten, I’m very unimpressed. I don’t mean it to come across snobbish. I just don’t see a take that’s in any way out of the usual.
While I don’t expect one book to teach it all, I would like to see how it compares to the current crop of books and why is it better. The sample chapter left me very unimpressed and the book looks like it’s meant to be more for a coffee table and less for actual hands on usage. I don’t see a way that someone would put this into practice without an accompanying practice/lab book. Otherwise, it reads like trivia that showcases how much the author knows. Great, I guess?
Speaking of covers, Open Circuits: Inner Beauty of Electronics has a much more honest yet intelligent cover to it. Each page is both informational and extremely well done. Someone who has no knowledge of electronics or electricity can walk away learning something because it shows how things physically work with photos. The visual itself is almost self explanatory as a still image of different materials and how they are arranged. In other words, it has information density that’s both attractive and impactful.
My actual picks, are the likes of Floyd or Melvino, the Charles Platt one that has loads of circuits to build, and of course the clumsy but informative Forrest Mims series of books. Then you can get into Elicia White’s Embedded or any other assortment of more advanced books on power electronics etc.
Open to be proven wrong but yeah. I would have expected more because I don’t know of any book on this subject other than Art of Electronics and maybe Microelectronics by Sedra (or Razavi) that gets this much praise. Yet it started getting this praise before it was even released.
Bashing AI is fun except even good old Sam Ben-Yaakov is coming around to appreciate how useful it is to pedagogy.
The art of electronics is something you keep as a reference. The secret life of circuits is more pedagogical, and reads more like someone kindly explaining stuff instead of sending diagrams and formulas your way.
Other similar book in tone are “The C Programming Language” and the IT Mastery series by Michael Lucas.
I love my reference books, but they’re not usually great for pleasant reading. And books that relies on projects often don’t motivate you on doing said projects. I’d rather something that makes my curiosity grew and make me explore on my own.
I understand and agree with what you just said. What I’m gauging is where is the praise coming from? Who has it taught, and what did they get out of it? Art of Electronics is not one book, it is three - main book, lab book, x chapters. It has taught many people how to think about circuits. It has mileage of many many years that warrants the praise. Also, it was a composition of notes from a full course that had labs, that went into a book format. Meaning its very existence came from teaching students working circuits rather than, as one might assume, “sending diagrams and formulas [their] way”. But it does seem that way if someone tries to open it for the first time. It is a slog and a half.
Take Troubleshooting Analog Circuits by Bob Pease. He throws something janky at you to see if you can intuit what could the culprits be. He then elaborates the ways in which things can go wrong. This is an introductory chapter. Many books do this, it’s not perfect but it works. It’s a book about troubleshooting that starts with asking you to troubleshoot, and then helps you to do so by explaining how and why. Hard to argue with that.
I’m not against the book, but it does seem mostly like trivia. The accompanying blog posts are insightful, though the author spends a lot of time showing how much they know rather than explaining a concept to the student - and yes, there is a difference between the two. There are a number of instances I came across of this, and other texts are better written in this regard. If I didn’t already know the stuff the author is talking about, I would need to read up another resource on it. So then what is the point? Even Dave Jones’ videos have more use because he’s right there with an oscilloscope and voltmeter to show you what’s going on. Tricks tips for “young players” etc.
I'm not sure I understand your point about the errata[1]. Are you saying it's wonderful that he provides an online errata from the get go, and looks like he's committed to maintaining it? Or are you saying that it's a bad sign that a bunch of errors have been found in a newly published book?
It’s like a non-calculus based astronomy course. Sometimes you just want to learn about the thing directly without spending two semesters learning the mathematical machinery first.
The content is pretty good but I think they missed the target audience pretty badly with that title and cover.
If I was trying to make that jump from arduino blinking an LED to custom PCB again something like “Applied Circuits: A Practical Guide to to PCBs” with a cover in the style of the circuit diagrams[1] would be an instant buy.
> The content is pretty good but I think they missed the target audience pretty badly with that title and cover.
I'm in agreement with you. The cover art and title give the impression of a children's book or a coffee-table book or something "light and fun!". It's not a textbook, but it's much more than a fluffy lightweight children's book. Reading the sample chapter, I think the audience he should have targeted is anyone who liked the monthly magazine "Scientific American" (if you're old enough to remember that). Basically anyone who wouldn't mind being called a hacker, nerd, geek, or science fan. Which is still a huge audience.
I've been browsing his free sample chapter on basic electromechanical devices[1], and I must say that it is incredibly well written. Take a look at his explanation of switch bounce:
If you pry open a typical switch, you’ll probably find that its internals are quite complex. Inside, there might be a small spring-loaded roller that travels over a tiny hump or an intricately shaped metal leaf that “pops” when pressed firmly enough. The purpose of these mechanisms is to keep the switch firmly in place until sufficient force is applied, at which point it snaps immediately into the new position. This nonlinear behavior provides satisfying tactile feedback, reduces sensitivity to vibration and other accidental inputs, and prevents the switch from resting in any state other than “fully off” or “fully on.”
The flip side of this approach is that once the mechanism gives in, things happen quickly: The contacts are pulled apart or slammed together at a considerable speed. Because metal is elastic, this motion produces some vibration that manifests as electrical glitches lasting from tens of microseconds to a few milliseconds. The effect is known as switch bounce.
I know about switch bounce but I've never seen it explained so clearly. Usually electronics books will say "mechanical switches will bounce before settling" and will then describe a circuit or algorithm to deal with it. What's always missing is a plain English discussion of the why and how.
[1] https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/electronics/preview
I checked out that chapter because the critical topic after switch bouncing is debouncing! ctrl-f says not that chapter tho. Lots of other good stuff tho!
For the amount of marketing and praise this book has gotten, I’m very unimpressed. I don’t mean it to come across snobbish. I just don’t see a take that’s in any way out of the usual.
While I don’t expect one book to teach it all, I would like to see how it compares to the current crop of books and why is it better. The sample chapter left me very unimpressed and the book looks like it’s meant to be more for a coffee table and less for actual hands on usage. I don’t see a way that someone would put this into practice without an accompanying practice/lab book. Otherwise, it reads like trivia that showcases how much the author knows. Great, I guess?
Speaking of covers, Open Circuits: Inner Beauty of Electronics has a much more honest yet intelligent cover to it. Each page is both informational and extremely well done. Someone who has no knowledge of electronics or electricity can walk away learning something because it shows how things physically work with photos. The visual itself is almost self explanatory as a still image of different materials and how they are arranged. In other words, it has information density that’s both attractive and impactful.
My actual picks, are the likes of Floyd or Melvino, the Charles Platt one that has loads of circuits to build, and of course the clumsy but informative Forrest Mims series of books. Then you can get into Elicia White’s Embedded or any other assortment of more advanced books on power electronics etc.
Open to be proven wrong but yeah. I would have expected more because I don’t know of any book on this subject other than Art of Electronics and maybe Microelectronics by Sedra (or Razavi) that gets this much praise. Yet it started getting this praise before it was even released.
Bashing AI is fun except even good old Sam Ben-Yaakov is coming around to appreciate how useful it is to pedagogy.
I remain skeptical.
The art of electronics is something you keep as a reference. The secret life of circuits is more pedagogical, and reads more like someone kindly explaining stuff instead of sending diagrams and formulas your way.
Other similar book in tone are “The C Programming Language” and the IT Mastery series by Michael Lucas.
I love my reference books, but they’re not usually great for pleasant reading. And books that relies on projects often don’t motivate you on doing said projects. I’d rather something that makes my curiosity grew and make me explore on my own.
I understand and agree with what you just said. What I’m gauging is where is the praise coming from? Who has it taught, and what did they get out of it? Art of Electronics is not one book, it is three - main book, lab book, x chapters. It has taught many people how to think about circuits. It has mileage of many many years that warrants the praise. Also, it was a composition of notes from a full course that had labs, that went into a book format. Meaning its very existence came from teaching students working circuits rather than, as one might assume, “sending diagrams and formulas [their] way”. But it does seem that way if someone tries to open it for the first time. It is a slog and a half.
Take Troubleshooting Analog Circuits by Bob Pease. He throws something janky at you to see if you can intuit what could the culprits be. He then elaborates the ways in which things can go wrong. This is an introductory chapter. Many books do this, it’s not perfect but it works. It’s a book about troubleshooting that starts with asking you to troubleshoot, and then helps you to do so by explaining how and why. Hard to argue with that.
I’m not against the book, but it does seem mostly like trivia. The accompanying blog posts are insightful, though the author spends a lot of time showing how much they know rather than explaining a concept to the student - and yes, there is a difference between the two. There are a number of instances I came across of this, and other texts are better written in this regard. If I didn’t already know the stuff the author is talking about, I would need to read up another resource on it. So then what is the point? Even Dave Jones’ videos have more use because he’s right there with an oscilloscope and voltmeter to show you what’s going on. Tricks tips for “young players” etc.
Received my pre-order and started perusing it. It’s great to finally see an explanation of a lot of things I’ve only seen experimentally.
I got as far as the eratta
I'm not sure I understand your point about the errata[1]. Are you saying it's wonderful that he provides an online errata from the get go, and looks like he's committed to maintaining it? Or are you saying that it's a bad sign that a bunch of errors have been found in a newly published book?
[1] https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/electronics/errata.shtml
Love it
I still have no idea who this book is for.
It’s like a non-calculus based astronomy course. Sometimes you just want to learn about the thing directly without spending two semesters learning the mathematical machinery first.
The content is pretty good but I think they missed the target audience pretty badly with that title and cover.
If I was trying to make that jump from arduino blinking an LED to custom PCB again something like “Applied Circuits: A Practical Guide to to PCBs” with a cover in the style of the circuit diagrams[1] would be an instant buy.
[1] https://nostarch.com/download/samples/secret-life-of-circuit...
> The content is pretty good but I think they missed the target audience pretty badly with that title and cover.
I'm in agreement with you. The cover art and title give the impression of a children's book or a coffee-table book or something "light and fun!". It's not a textbook, but it's much more than a fluffy lightweight children's book. Reading the sample chapter, I think the audience he should have targeted is anyone who liked the monthly magazine "Scientific American" (if you're old enough to remember that). Basically anyone who wouldn't mind being called a hacker, nerd, geek, or science fan. Which is still a huge audience.
Reading the sample chapter at https://nostarch.com/download/samples/secret-life-of-circuit... makes me think this would be a good gift to a 10+ year old who is interested in learning about electronics.
That was my thinking, giving a copy to my niece and nephew this weekend.