Getting Started in Electronics [Paperback]

Forrest M. Mims III (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

This is a complete electronics course in 128 pages! Author Forrest Mims teaches you the basics, takes you on a tour of analog and digital components, explains how they work, and shows you how they are combines for various applications. Includes circuit assembly tips and 100 electronic circuits and projects you can build and test.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Forrest M. Mims, III, has written dozens of books, hundreds of articles, invented scientific devices, and travelled to the Amazon for NASA. He loves to share his knowledge with eager students!

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Master Publishing, Inc. (February 2003)
• ISBN-10: 0945053282
• ISBN-13: 978-0945053286
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,793 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thanks very much to Amazon's reviewers or for their kind comments about my books. "Getting Started in Electronics," which has sold more than 1.3 million copies, seems to have received the most attention, so I'll comment on it here.

The book was developed during a 58-day marathon session of laying out the book and then drawing/printing the pages with a 0.7 mm mechanical pencil. It was then necessary to develop and test each of the 100 circuits. Each circuit was built and tested at least three times to avoid errors. The final round of tests was done directly from the hand-lettered text. The problem with the final testing was that many of the circuits could be built from memory without referring to the circuit diagrams in the book. This, of course, could have allowed errors to slip through. So it was necessary to check off each connection to make sure the book version was correctly reassembled from scratch.

This was the first Radio Shack book that was entirely hand-lettered. Dave Gunzel, then Radio Shack's technical editor, decided it was time for a fully hand-lettered book, and I was glad to oblige. "Engineer's Notebook," which preceded "Getting Started in Electronics," was introduced with several typed pages before full hand lettering was begun. It was Dave's idea to introduce these books, which eventually led to the "Engineer's Mini-Notebook" series. Dave used to witness science entries in my hand-lettered lab notebooks, and those notebooks triggered his idea for me to do the hand-lettered books.

A full list of my books, scientific papers, magazine articles and newspaper columns is at www.forrestmims.org. My scholarly history of Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory will be published by the University of Hawaii Press. I am planning a popular version of the Mauna Loa Observatory book and a memoir about my work as a serious amateur scientist.

Forrest M. Mims III
www.forrestmims.org

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

167 of 169 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How can I possibly be the first to rate this book?, December 13, 2004

By 

Christopher C. Owens (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Getting Started in Electronics (Paperback)

I cannot overstate the impact this book has had in my life.

My dad bought me a copy of this book when I was in 7th grade.

22 years later, I'm working in the electronics industry, and I keep my original copy handy for reference or explaining electronics concepts, and I regularly buy additional copies to give to coworkers and friends who need a crash course in electronics. There are some other books (_The Art of Electronics_ for instance) that I hold almost as dearly, but while I'm sure people can come up with flaws in this book, it's been on my shelf for more than half my life.

It literally got me started in electronics.

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best intro to electronics, January 18, 2007

By 

Jason D. Kridner "jadonpop" (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Getting Started in Electronics (Paperback)

I read this book when I was 10. I went on to college and got a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and work in the industry. Never in my education and experience have I run across a better book on electronics. It is very limited on math and won't teach you how to solve circuits, but it will give you a conceptual framework that helps the math make sense.

The book has lots of practical examples that you can implement to get the "feel" of electronics. Many of these exercises are ones that folks in the industry haven't managed to do and it shows in their work. This should be everyone's first book on electronics.

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It is an average beginning electronics book, August 8, 2007

By 

David Ivey - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Getting Started in Electronics (Paperback)

I wanted to learn electronics but I ended up being frustrated. Almost every beginning level electronics book explains 'what' resistors, capacitors, diodes, and other electronic components are and how they work. However, they all fall short of explaining 'why' these components are found in any particular electronic circuit. This book is no different.

I can look at a schematic and build what I see, but I have no idea why the circuit was designed the way it was designed. WHY does a capacitor need to be placed between this IC pin and that component? I believe my lack of knowledge is a result of not yet finding the right book to give me that knowledge. Mim's book gave me some of the 'what' but is sorely lacking on the 'why'. Unfortunately most beginning electronics books suffer from the same problem.