The Art of Electronics
by Paul Horowitz, Winfield Hill
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Book Reviews of The Art of Electronics
Book Review: Dated, Dry and Not for the Beginner
Summary: 1 Stars
Ok, I read this book cover to cover, and then some. What do I think? We'll it's a classic, no doubt, but classics within the cutting edge field of electronics are not usually good things, unless the authors stick to the fundamentals. But the authors don't. They get into gorry detail after detail about obsolete processors (e.g. 68008), obsolete microprocessor-based instruments, obselete programming styles, obselete prototyping methods, and simply obsolete circuit design. To simply get a sense of the basics you must wade through page after page of incredibly boring details about obselete devices. You may read this stuff, and perhaps feel like you've just conquered a difficult topic, but then you ask yourself afterward what can I do with my knowledge. For me, not much. It's not written in an introductory text manner so you can get a firm grasp on the circuit theorems, transistor models, and op amps. For example, you wouldn't read this book and then expect to be able to pass an exam. Ok, it may not be meant for that, but what then? In terms of practical stuff, forget it. Today, anything interesting involves using a microcontroller. But where in the book are microcontrollers. Yes on page 975 they have a paragraph about microcontrollers, but that's it. No pictures, no example microcontrollers, no example microcontroller applications, nothing. If you were a newbe to electronics, after reading this book, you'd probably not even realize what one was, or how incredibly important and useful these things are today. No mention of PICs, Stamps, etc. Also, there are hardly any examples of how to do interesting things, such robotics, controlling LCD displays, controlling servos, and other I/O devices (most of which use microcontrollers--what a supprise!). OK, I know that the book might not be meant as a hobbyist book, but what's the point of such a book if you don't come away with a practical sense of know-how about applying your knowledge to real-life applications. The only practical application I found in the book was cooking an egg, and boy was that complex. This book might have been good 15 years ago, but today it's not! Why wade through such complex information when it's obsolete, or doesn't teach you the fundamentals in a rigorous manner. The only time I seem to open this book is to look at the derivative formulas in the appendix, and then I'm not even dealing with electronics! Read this book if you are a historian or a hardcore academic, but don't read it if you want to get cracking on cool electronic gadgets.Book Review: VERY disappointing...
Summary: 1 Stars
I had real high hopes for this book. I waited salivating for a week for it to show up in the mail. Eagerly, I tore open the package & immediately began perusing through it, intent on getting a taste of what was within. As expected from my observation of the page count, there was a plethora of information at my fingertips, everything an individual could possibly surmise he/she might need to know on transistors, diodes, dividers, saturation, emitters, etc. But within minutes of glancing through, my heart sunk. There was just one thing that was holding me back from diving head first into the book beginning on page 1, that one thing was the fact that there were no color photographs, everything was a stark, brutal, dry, clipped black-&-white. There was no explaining of just what in the world electricity was & why it acted as it did. I've taken a physics course, & conceptually, I excel at it. I was anticipating an overview on the very thing that was the key point of this waste of paper. There was none. It SAID in the beginning that it would start off at a point that even an neophyte could follow. I have my own hypothesis on why the lowest rating available that can be given to a book is one & not a big fat 0: It's because that the majority of these authors, artists, editors, etc., have at least TRIED to get a point across. It ISN'T easy writing a book. Everybody deserves at least a single lonely star for the effort that is exhibited through the very book's existence. This just wasn't the book for me. Not for the highly restless, distractable, impatient person that I am. To get my attention, there must be something to spark interest. I have to say, the cover was real nice. It IS a HANDBOOK for the PRACTICING electrian, not for the just-curious-so-I'll-just-skim-through-it-to-achieve-a-better-understanding-of-the-topic person. Another one of this book's highlights is it's valiant attempt to teach the art of electronics w/o scaring people off w/ the heavy math. It also tries an intuitive approach, which is very nice, however it only succeeds 25% of the time. To get the most out of this book: 1) Do not have attention defecit disorder. 2) Have a clear understanding of algebra (how to work w/ imaginary numbers inparticular), trigonometry (conics, especially), & calculus. 3) Be patient. 4) Be anal retentive.Book Review: Terrific Accompaniment to Circuit Design.
Summary: 4 Stars
This text certainly has an excellent wealth of good solid practical information and this is what makes it so good.
The only reason I didn't give it a full 5 stars is because it's suffering from being slightly out dated. While all the key electronics designs are all still valid and the computer interface design points certainly still apply, there is a need to address higher frequency design issues which are the bane of modern day computing.
A chapter on now common interfaces such as USB and Firewire would be well received, along with focusing design towards embedded controllers.
At the end of the day, no one book can do it all though and the aim of this book is to show the core building blocks in practical ways so as to give the reader the chance to avoid re-inventing the wheel.
A 3rd edition would benefit by addressing the many new sensors(reduced costs in accelerometers for starters) that are now available(a host of great sensors have appeared since 1989), touch on good embedded controller design and perhaps even a side companion (good practical code examples for the embedded systems designer.. "hmm The art of embedded system design" perhaps. Adding current motor control circuit designs would make this book an absolute winner.
Overall if your past the introductory basics of electronics this book is highly worth while. I also disagree with the individuals who are claiming this is a confusing book. If it's confusing you don't know your theory well enough my friends. Go and get that under your belt then come back to this book. You may find it a lot better. However having said that, it's extremely descriptive on the rudiments of basic electronics as well so I don't know what there complaining about??? To me it isn't a text book, it's more of an experienced engineers way of imparting great knowledge on and in that vein Winfield and Paul are to be commended and thanked for this excellent resource.
Well worth having in your electrical engineering toolkit.(This book beats several Uni courses hands down).
Enjoy it,
Sean A. Curtin
Book Review: Not useful for learning electronics on your own.
Summary: 2 Stars
I've put a lot of effort into reading this book in an attempt to learn practical electronics. There are some very good points about this book. It covers a lot of the subject, from simple resistors to microcomputers to radio-frequency circuits and the authors are careful to explain how to make circuits that are resistant to component tolerance. I like this fail-safe approach.
On the other hand, from the point of view of someone learning this on his own (i.e. not in a classroom setting with a professor/T.A. to ask questions of) it leaves a lot to be desired. As I read this, time and time again I was reminded of that Far Side cartoon where the scientist has a blackboard full of formulas, with "THEN MAGIC HAPPENS" near the bottom and then the result. Too many steps are skipped when explaining the solution. A good example is the "error" reported by "larry f" in his review. This is not actually an error, but the explanation is missing some key insights that would have made the solution crystal clear. A couple of sentences such as "When the transistor shuts off, the emitter voltage will be -5V because of the voltage divider formed by the output resistor (connected to ground) and the emitter resistor (connected to -10V.) If the transistor is conducting, the current will increase through the emitter resistor, causing the emitter voltage to rise, thus the emitter voltage cannot ever go below -5V." It took me a long time of staring at the circuit to figure this out. This sort of omission is unfortunately the norm rather than the exception.
There are no answers to any of the many exercises (unless you buy the companion book for more money) so you can't check your progress to make sure you're understanding the concepts explained.
I think the very thing that makes this book a good reference lets it down as a teaching book. It overextends into too many areas. If the authors had written a simple analog electronics concepts book where things were examined in more detail, I think they'd have a winner. As it is, I don't recommend this book to someone who isn't assigned it in a college setting.
Book Review: Not what I expected...
Summary: 2 Stars
This book whets your appetite but ultimately fails to empower the reader. The scope of this book is much too wide, its attempt to cover both digital and analogue exasperbates this. The analogue circuit building blocks are often either too simple, or vagely explained with inadeqaute DESIGN (mathematics) information to actually make them useful, and allow the reader to MODIFY them to suit a specific application. The book is not coherent or detailed enough to serve as a stand-alone introduction to electronics and is not detailed enough to be useful for a more seasoned reader who actually wants to design something with minimal guesswork. So what exactly is the target audience?Quite often REAL WORLD circuits are not provided, with excuses like "The best approach is probably to buy a commercial VCXO, rather than attempt to design your own." (ch.5 p.302). It is possible to build a simple VCXO from a few discrete components that is quite suitable for many less demanding applications. I purchased this book to LEARN how to design practical circuits, not to be told to go out and buy a pre-built solutions that are likely too expensive, hard to find and overkill for my projects (we don't all live in the middle of silicone valley you know!)
When practical designs are shown, like the "Real-world switcher example" (pp.361-366 ch.6) they are obviously far to complicated to study in enough depth to leave the reader with anything more than a general understanding, rather than real design knowledge. Once again, it would be possible in this book to explain a the design process for a simple, but practical Buck Converter, so why not provide such an example?
Too much of this book serves more like an incoherent GLOSSARY rather than a bible, with plenty of talk, that often leads to no substance. If this book is stripped down to include only the information that can be applied/adapted to a practical design it would become very thin indeed. In modern times even a general internet search engine serves as a much more powerful (and constantly growing) glossary, than any "jack of all trades, master of none" book like this could ever hope for.