Kindle Edition
Read instantly on your iPad, PC, Mac, Android tablet or Kindle Fire
Buy Price: $40.59
Rent From: $7.80
 
 
   
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Color:
Image not available

To view this video download Flash Player

 

Bebop to the Boolean Boogie: An Unconventional Guide to Electronics (with CD-ROM), Second Edition [Paperback]

Clive Maxfield
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)


Available from these sellers.


Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
 
Kindle Edition
Rent from
$40.59
$7.80
 
Paperback --  
Amazon.com Textbooks Store
Shop the Amazon.com Textbooks Store and save up to 70% on textbook rentals, 90% on used textbooks and 60% on eTextbooks.
There is a newer edition of this item:
Bebop to the Boolean Boogie, Third Edition: An Unconventional Guide to Electronics Bebop to the Boolean Boogie, Third Edition: An Unconventional Guide to Electronics 4.9 out of 5 stars (14)
$33.57
Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks

Book Description

January 9, 2003 0750675438 978-0750675437 2
From reviews of the first edition:

"If you want to be reminded of the joy of electronics, take a look at Clive (Max) Maxfield's book Bebop to the Boolean Boogie." --Computer Design

"Lives up to its title as a useful and entertaining technical guide....well-suited for students, technical writers, technicians, and sales and marketing people." --Electronic Design

"Writing a book like this one takes audacity! ... Maxfield writes lucidly on a variety of complex topics without 'writing down' to his audience." --EDN

"A highly readable, well-illustrated guided tour through basic electronics." -Science Books & Films

"Extremely readable and easy to understand, you'll wonder how people learned about this stuff before this book came along." --New Book Bulletin, Computer Literacy Bookshops

* The difference between the analog and digital worlds.

* What logic gates are and how to make them from transistors.


Editorial Reviews

Review

"Extremely readable and easy to understand, you'll wonder how people learned about this stuff before this book came along."
- New Book Bulletin, Computer Literacy Bookshops

"A highly readable, well-illustrated guided tour through basic electronics."
- Science Books & Films

"There's something for anyone involved in anyway in electronics, whether as a mild interest or as a serious technician. . . . The book is an excellent and invaluable resource for anyone who's ever held a soldering iron and wants to know what makes current electronics technology tick, and where it's going in the future."
- Everyday with Practical Electronics (U.K.)

"This book is better than most college courses for learning electronics basics."
- The Daily Spectrum

"Maxfield shows the best of his style, mixing deep knowledge of technical history with a great sense of humor and a strong passion for finding some (almost) unbelievable nuggets of trivia. On the whole, this is a book that deserves the acclaim it received since the very first edition and it should be on the desk of everybody who is interested in digital electronics design."
- Electronics World, January 2006

Book Description

The highly-successful most readable and comprehensive introduction to contemporary electronics available!

Product Details

  • Paperback: 500 pages
  • Publisher: Newnes; 2 edition (January 9, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0750675438
  • ISBN-13: 978-0750675437
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,335,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi there, my name is Clive Maxfield, but everyone calls me "Max" (the name of every dog and every robot in every science fiction film ever made). This is sort of a family nickname; my dad, aunt, little 'bro, and so forth are all called "Max" (this can lead to somewhat convoluted after-dinner conversations).

When I was younger, I was interested in both Art and Engineering; at one stage I was seriously contemplating going to art school, but my mom told me that very few artists made much money, so I became an engineer specializing in electronics and computers. And then, while I wasn't looking, I accidentally became a writer. Don't ask me how; it started with a single magazine article, and ended up with seven books and writing as a full-time job (in the day) and as a hobby (in the evenings).

My current passion (apart from my wife, of course) is my recently published book "How Computers Do Math" (which I co-authored with my friend, Alvin Brown). This little scamp is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing a virtual computer/calculator called the DIY Calculator. The book walks the reader through a series of step-by-step interactive laboratories, that end up with the creation of a simple four-function (add, subtract, multiply, and divide) calculator program (written in our simple assembly language) that makes the DIY Calculator ... well, calculate (you can read more on our website at www.DIYCalculator.com).

Last but not least, my idea of a good time is having a BBQ and hanging out with family and friends.

Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
(14)
4.7 out of 5 stars
Clear, comprehensive, funny and genuinely both informative and entertaining. Dean McKenzie  |  4 reviewers made a similar statement
I love that I can just skim through this book & find the information that I need. J Bennett  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Irreverent writing, good topics December 26, 2005
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Maxfield's book is unique, both in format and in content. And I'm not just talking about the gumbo recipe at the end.

The first section, almost 150 pages, is "logic lite." It starts with transistors, both MOS and bipolar. From there it works its way up to simple latches and such, and scratches the surface of state machines, with side trips to boolean arithmetic and such. The breezy, informal style will work for people put off by more academic treatments, but the logic design content stops way short of what any other basic logic text would present.

The second, longer section covers material sorely missing from all other logic texts I know. It starts with the simpler parts of silicon fab process, then goes through all kinds of printed circuits and hybrid packages giving a fair tour of the basic printed curcuit (PC) processes that were current when the book was written (1995). It even goes into gutsy stuff like the copper patterns in PC processes that have to do with heat flow during soldering. All those real-world facts earned this book an extra star. The "far out technology" chapter at the end is an interesting read, too, with its discussions of nano, optical, and molecular computing.

The book's weaknesses are significant, though. It would work well with any of several companion texts that would cover what this misses. That includes more advanced logic techniques, like alternatives to gate-level implementation and all the fussy bits of state machines. A standard logic text (e.g. Katz) would fill in those blanks. Going in a different direction, it does only a little towards talking about how PC layout interacts with logic design. More about ground planes, guard rings, power decoupling, RF emissions, etc. would fit well with the detail presented here, espcially when you see how much time and effort it already spends on "vias" vs. "holes." The little bit of analog discussion from the front would help here - why inductive effects matter at high frequencies, why distributed capacitance is different from lumped, why you'd have a high-value and low-value capacitor in parallel, and why that ceramic cap near the power input has a saw cut in the edge. A third possible direction would be the way Wirth's book on circuit design for CS students went: into the higher levels of design, letting tools attend to the lower levels. The biggest flaw is in treating FPGAs as exotic, out-there technology - by 1995, they were well into the main stream, and have very nearly killed off discrete logic and ASICs in many areas.

If you just want a light-weight intro to logic design and to the physical circuits that carry it, this is OK. It could have been better in all directions and, at this 2005 writing, you should check it's sell-by date. I gave it the fourth star for addressing PCs and mounting at all, not for addressing them well.

//wiredweird
Was this review helpful to you?
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback

Maxfield audaciously attempts to cover the fundamentals ofelectronic theory and components from atoms to large scale integrationand beyond. He manages to pull it off brilliantly.


This is a book that anyone interested in the subject can read for pleasure, it is no stuffy textbook, and yet you find that you have received a comprehensive grounding in the subject, almost without realising it.


The authors off-beat style and liberal sprinkling of quirky facts keeps your interest while difficult concepts are presented in a way that makes them easy to understand yet manages to cover them in more than sufficient detail


There is also a pretty good Seafood Gumbo recipe.


The author has a website at http://ro.com/~bebopbb


See also Maxfields new book - Bebop Bytes Back (an unconventional guide to computers) at http://ro.com/~bebopbb/bbytesb.htm

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding! April 23, 2003
Format:Paperback
I have a MSEE, but I found this book to be far more enlightening and useful than any textbook I ever read in college. It teaches you the real basics of electronics without going into complex mathematical equations and theories. It teaches you in a way that is fun with emphasis on the key points that really matter. If you work in the electronic industry, but are non technical or even if you are technical this is a great book that is easy reading. They should write more books like this.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars Bebob to the Boolean Boogie
Transport to Holland took quit a while, but I arrived in the promised time. Only the product was sold including CD-Rom. Read more
Published on December 21, 2010 by Casper vander Stap
5.0 out of 5 stars Bebop to the Boolean Boogie Textbook Review
Good book - I saw it first at Barnes & Noble. Very helpful and insightful for the electronics technician or anyone else wanting to understand basic digital concepts and procedure.
Published on September 18, 2010 by Roger Capwell
5.0 out of 5 stars Great refresher!
I love that I can just skim through this book & find the information that I need. It is really basic - clearly written with great examples. Read more
Published on March 15, 2006 by J Bennett
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Considering this book deals with what I consider to be rocket science at best and black magic at worst I think it does a really good job of explaining things. Read more
Published on February 23, 2006 by AndyT13
5.0 out of 5 stars Makes Really Boring Stuff Interesting
As a student finishing my B.S. in Computer Science, I very badly needed something to liven up my CPU architecture and discrete math classes, which were horribly boring. Read more
Published on March 18, 2005 by Thomas Dunham
5.0 out of 5 stars A goofy yet detailed overview of electronics fundamentals
This is a great book ranging from the absolute basics of number systems to circuit design, ceramics to alternative and future technologies. Read more
Published on January 22, 2002 by "marinick"
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent start
Clive Maxfield is brilliant and has a great sense of humor. If you don't believe me, ask his mother (he tells us so in the book). Read more
Published on November 7, 2001 by jumpy1
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!
If only all "techies" could write like this! Clear, comprehensive, funny and genuinely both informative and entertaining. There's even a recipe for Seafood Gumbo! Read more
Published on February 20, 2000 by Dean McKenzie
5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what I needed!
This book was exactly what I needed; a review of basic logic circuits and simple explanations on manufacturing processes.
Published on December 18, 1999 by Hugh Effow
5.0 out of 5 stars An unconventional treat for the technologically curious
One of the friendliest "textbooks" I've ever encountered, this is a superb introduction to digital logic followed by a description of how that logic is captured in... Read more
Published on January 5, 1999
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews




What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Forums

There are no discussions about this product yet.
Be the first to discuss this product with the community.
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 





Look for Similar Items by Category