alt Hacker NewsThe Secret Life of Circuits
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I see some discussion of which books are good for people with various levels of electronics knowledge. I'd like to add one that I've never seen mentioned here: Agarwal and Lang's "Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronics".
This was the book used by MIT in 2007 for the first course in the EE and CS programs. It is that year's course that is on their Open Courseware platform [1], and the readings list there links to a full PDF of the book.
(Edit: click the book title on the readings page, not the "View e-book version" link. See my response to groos' comment below for details).
This is not a link to a pirated copy BTW. Agarwal is a pioneer in the open-education movement and the authors intentionally arranged for an open access PDF.
The lecture videos on Open Courseware are very good too.
[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-002-circuits-and-electronics-s...
I am from software engineer background and how I learn Circuit is just watching the best 3 video from "Captive Aire" channel:
1. https://youtu.be/pDELW2pIvWw?si=BNsURdXrGLlaAfF3 (Digital Electronic)
2. https://youtu.be/RG3eljmqyq4?si=Pnbvf6P6HbFcIa1v (Alternating Current, Motors, & control)
3. https://youtu.be/nYuVSG89vg0?si=Oe3ZdJojS7T_iGxK (Electric Basic Made is Easy), and
the episode of "Nand to Tetris"
If you're ordering from Europe, be sure to check if it's available in your local Amazon page first, I almost got slapped with like a 50% shipping/import charges because I went straight to the main link (the US amazon). The ones that have it are listed in the blog post.
This book looks like it’s targeted squarely at people like me!
I’ve been a software engineer for the last couple of decades and I’ve tinkered with microcontrollers as a hobby but always been limited by my lack of electronics knowledge - very much trial and error to get a project far enough to be able to focus on the firmware (which is more my domain). I want to bridge the knowledge gap there.
My only formal electronics education was first year introduction to analog and digital circuits module at university two decades ago, led by a lecturer who assumed students had a huge corpus of pre-existing knowledge (and who I now suspect would have preferred to be supervising his PhD students and conducting research but had to make up the teaching hours - which I do understand).
I will definitely pick up a copy. However, Amazon UK (to avoid the NoStarch UPS shipping cost of $24) won’t get it to me until November. I’m excited to receive it.
Michał Zalewski (the author of this book) is goated. His book Silence on the Wire was very inspiring to me and the techniques he described often come to my mind years after reading the book
I like the 'certified clank free' logo. It that a standard thing now?
This is a much better introduction to circuits than most. You actually get a bit of depth rather than a cookbook of "do this to get that" sort of prose.
Super looking forward to it. Got it on preorder in Europe! Will still be a bit of a waiting time.
Always enjoy reading the blog posts, and this seems like a great way to support work that gives me joy. Who knows, might start picking up actual electronics as side projects. Hardware work seems like such a great way to get code into the physical world.
This thing is a tome. And I like it like that. Functions as a nerdy coffee table book when not in use.
> It gives real answers but doesn’t demand a year of calculus beforehand.
Oh yes, these kinds of shortcuts have always worked great.
Pre-ordered mine(hardback). Yeesh....I have no impulse control because this looks like so much fun,
looks like a great book, but the cover is hard to look at after having a few painful soldering burns
Just ordered. Love these kinds of books. Any others like this one people are aware of?
Got mine. And I'm a former EE. Looking forward to it, maybe inspire my daughter a bit.
It would be nice to see a similar book devoted to sensors. Anyone have recommendations?
The artwork on the cover should come with a health and safety notice :D
Already purchased, looking forward to getting it!!!
Love the "certified clank-free" logo
This looks like it’ll be a good book for me to learn more about electrical theory and circuit design, I know a bit about AC and DC electricity from working in electrical construction which should help me dive right in, thanks for sharing this book release!
I looked at sample chapter, the fonts and layout are visually repulsive.
The cover art is a gross error of judgement, and it stops me from buying this book for the next generation of hackers in the wider family.
Adults will understand that the "shush" gesture with the soldering iron is supposed to be a play on the "secret" in the title, but a large part of the target audience is 12-15 years old. There will inevitably be some who'll imitate the picture, with painful results.
A couple clicks through to older lcamtuf posts and I came across this in the "what is electricity" post:
> Once again, we don’t have a satisfying explanation why. We know that these quantum numbers correspond to standing-wave solutions of a three-dimensional wave function that we pulled out of thin air. We also know that the model works better than any alternatives. But we don’t know what any of it really means — or if it means anything.
It is so refreshing to see this explicated thus; physics textbooks are generally coy about "know this for now, and there will be deeper insights available later" but they typically never level with readers and say "we don't know".