
Forrest Mims, Radio Shack, and the Notebooks That Launched a Thousand Careers - blueatlas
https://hackaday.com/2017/01/18/forrest-mims-radio-shack-and-the-notebooks-that-launched-a-thousand-careers/
======
zipoff
Forrest Mims' mini-notebooks were horrible. They consisted of circuits cribbed
from app notes -- but with the explanatory text removed. There's no way to
understand how circuits work by reading the mini-notebooks. They were
specifically designed to keep readers ignorant so they would have to buy more
of the lousy books. I plodded through the 555 timer book when I was a kid and
didn't learn a single thing. If only I had known about databooks at the time,
I could have called Signetics and they would have sent me a free copy of a
book with all the same circuits _and detailed theory of operations_. I might
have become an electrical engineer instead of a programmer.

I believe Mims was also the author of the awful manual for Rat Shack's 100-in-
one kit, which told the lie that a bipolar junction transistor is two diodes
back-to-back. This is only true in the literal sense that a transistor has two
P-N junctions; it's like if you roll down your car window and ask a passer-by
for directions, and he helpfully tells you that you're in your car. It omits
the key feature of the transistor, namely transconductance. And after reading
it, I couldn't understand transistors for decades. Eventually I got hold of a
college-level textbook which explained that when the base-emitter junction is
forward-biased, the collector-emitter path acts like a resistor. Simple and
clear, unlike Mims' writing which is designed to obfuscate and confound.

~~~
dzdt
Lol. I had that 100-in-one kit and remember the transistor non-explanation. I
remember the kit being kinda fun but not nearly so much as programming. With
the hardware kit it was almost impossible to make anything outside of the
limited recipes provided; with software it was easy to have your own ideas and
make something new.

~~~
lowercased
i had that 100-in-1 kit too, and yeah, it was pretty non-accessible for a kid.
got a few of the things to "work", but not any real understanding of how to
make changes to anything to try something different. always thought it was my
own limited brain. then we got a sinclair zx81... and i never looked at
hardware again.

------
NeedMoreTea
_" There was a time when Radio Shack offered an incredible variety of supplies
for the electronics hobbyist"_

Bit of a distraction perhaps. Yep, incredible variety. All at the worst value
for money known to mankind (at least in the UK).

Pack of _three_ resistors. £1.95. Or was that £5.95? In 1970s or 1980. Enough
bits for a simple op amp demo project £80, arm and leg.

If memory serves, they were an early adopter of custom currency. Instead of
pricing the items on shelves they _colour coded_ the cheap (lol) stuff. Red
dot meant 1.95, blue 5.95 etc. There were only 5 or 7 price bands. I hated the
place.

Thankfully in the back of an electronics mag were ads for a mysterious company
"Maplin" that had a mail order catalogue. Everything was 10% or less of Tandy
prices. Surprisingly Maplin was the one that lasted longest, though it was
many years before they had a store nearby.

On to books.

The Radio Shack quick reference posters, cards, etc were brilliant. So I
grabbed a a few indecipherable Radio Shack introductory books explaining
various topics. They rarely seemed to explain anything. They _were_ all shrink
wrapped so you couldn't skim in store. I forget the authors though. I just
remember quickly learning their own titles were something to avoid. I may have
missed a dozen great authors thanks to that lesson. :)

The ones to get were the Babani books as they were 95p each for a 100 page
paperback. Not shrink wrapped either! Thankfully long before the end of the
Net Book Agreement (Price printed on cover by publisher) or Radio shack would
have sold them for a tenner. Most of which seemed to be by a guy called R A
Penfold. Don't ever remember reading an "about the author". Never did work out
if he was a real author or a house pen name as he was impossibly prolific.
Turns out yes, indeed, he was one guy. Who must have written hundreds of
electronics, radio, and other hobbyist books.

~~~
stevekemp
As soon as you mentioned books I had a flashback to R. A. Penfold - and I was
pleased you mentioned him. It didn't occur to me, at the time, it might have
been a pen-name. As you say the author was very prolific.

I still have a couple of those books, though I moved away from hardware
without delving too deeply. It's only recently I've started tackling hardware
again, but these days I think of microcontrollers and microprocessors which
can be programmed, rather than discrete components. At the time the most I'd
have touched would have been the odd op-amp, and the 555.

------
ChuckMcM
Forrest's notebooks were the inspiration for my robotics notebook. I have most
of them (although I've scanned them because that paper was just not going to
survive!) and when I learned about lab notebooks in college labs I started
keeping a notebook of my experiments in building microprocessor systems. For
hobby work, having a notebook was especially helpful because I could quickly
resynchronize what I was working on just by reading my notes. I also drew
schematics, and noted weird discoveries (like you can run TTL even when the
ground line is actually 12V as long as the VCC line is 17V :-).

The complete list is here:
[http://www.forrestmims.org/publications.html](http://www.forrestmims.org/publications.html)

These days though you sometimes have to figure out what the industry part
number is for the radio shack number.

------
FlyMoreRockets
Most, if not all of the Forrest Mims "Engineer's Mini Notebooks" are up on the
Internet Archive.

[https://archive.org/search.php?query=Forrest%20Mims](https://archive.org/search.php?query=Forrest%20Mims)

------
le-mark
Wow I really miss Radioshack. I needed a resistor to hack my my cars
evaporation sensor. A $1000 job to replace the sensor (remove dashboard) or a
$.20 resistor. Luckily found a shop not to far away.

~~~
newnewpdro
You miss a specific form of Radioshack, which really is more you miss the
distant past.

In my childhood we would go to Radioshack to pick up components required to
repair our wood-enclosed CRT TV. Burnt resistors, that kind of thing. This was
in the 80s and very early 90s. By the mid-90s Radioshack was already becoming
largely useless.

Another thing I miss from the 80s: Local mom & pop hardware stores in my
neighborhood generally had a quality hobby section with RC model kits and
replacement parts. I would ride my bmx bike to get replacement control arms
and alternative pinion/spur gears for my RC-10. By the 90s it required an hour
drive by car to reach one of the few surviving hobby shops stocking any RC
stuff.

At least Fry's Electronics stocks a good selection of electronics components,
not that there's any near me.

~~~
paulie_a
There was a time rs made an attempt to go back to selling hobby components,
but they were basically a cellphone company by then.

------
sizzzzlerz
My interest in electronics started when I was 11 or 12 and has led me to a 40+
year career in electrical engineering and programming. Thinking back, I
attribute that, in somewhat equal parts, to Popular Electronics, the ARRL Ham
Radio Handbooks, and Forrest Mims. I only built a few smallish projects
(mostly dealing with blinking LEDs) but they were enough to keep my interest.
Funny thing is that, after I graduated with my EE degree and got my first job,
I haven't touched a soldering iron or designed a circuit since.

------
dreamcompiler
I still have my Mims books and still occasionally refer to them. They're
awesome.

------
tingletech
I loved these books as a kid. My grandpa got them for me, and a bread board,
one birthday. He helped me build a power supply to use with the breadboard.

~~~
gavinpc
Same (from my uncle, who then worked at Martin Marietta on the shuttle
tankers).

While I enjoyed reading through them and learned a number of concepts, his
books helped demonstrate that I was _not_ going to become an electrical
engineer. I just didn't know what to do with it. Whereas, I was exposed to
programming books at the same time (starting with David A. Lien) and was like
a fish in water.

Also, RIP Radio Shack, though it was really a slow death by degrees.

~~~
setquk
Odd path here. I did EE and ended up writing software. All my peers who did
mechanical engineering, control systems and law actually ended up writing
software as well. All roads lead to software in 2018!

------
clueless123
Loved this books and allowed me to build several of the projects.. (Including
the _very_ crappy LED oscilloscope). They where very non threatening to a 14
year old kid with a reduced command of the English language.

------
chaghalibaghali
I've always been keen to understand more about electronics, but never know
where to start - I flicked through a PDF of the Mims Notebook and it looks
like a great reference, but without enough explanation for me.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a more "from zero knowledge" place to
start learning?

~~~
CamperBob2
A good next step up from Mims would probably be the ARRL Handbook. After that,
or possibly concurrently with it, Horowitz and Hill's Art of Electronics 3rd
ed. would be worth looking into.

I've heard good things about _Practical Electronics for Inventors_ as well but
haven't actually seen a copy.

------
femto
Also his book "Understanding Digital Computers" (1978). The details (magnetic
core and bubble memory) are dated, but the fundamentals (logic, gates, ALU,
...) are still relevant and clearly explained at a level that a school child
should be able to understand.

------
gumby
I know "me too"s are kinda junk comments but Mims was so influential on me,
and I know on so many of my friends, that I just had to post this "me too"
comment.

------
trevyn
Mims’ prose book Siliconnections is also a fantastic read; he talks about
working in the electronics field around that time.

------
squozzer
For better or worse, the mini-notebook is where I learned about using a
ballast resistor for LEDs.

------
mkstowegnv
Stories about Mims always attract comments that make it clear that his writing
inspired many to learn electronics. But to give some balance to the starry
eyed impression left by the article and many such comments I suggest looking
into his Wikipedia page [1] or any other source that talks about his
creationist and climate change denialist views and how they have lead to
controversy in his life.

I would also strongly recommend against his books for beginners now because
even simple projects should at least consider alternatives based on
microcontrollers and there are now much better and more comprehensive books
that cover the basics that Mims covered and more modern alternatives. I would
recommend The Art of Electronics [2] (older editions can be bought affordably)
which incorporates learn- from- real- world- bad- design wisdom, and which has
a sense of humor utterly lacking in Mims' writing.

1 (with controversy section)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Mims](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Mims)

2
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Electronics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Electronics)

~~~
sas
As someone who has spent a lot of time both on learning electronics and
understanding how to teach it, I would argue against this as bad advice.

The Art of Electronics is like a recipe book — it's a (whimsical, yes) set of
reference designs to be referred to like templates for a design engineer. The
Art of Electronics is not a well-suited recommendation for a beginner or
novice.

Furthermore: I have spoken to Forrest Mims (disclosure: the discussions I have
had with him were in the process of creating circuitclassics.com. That said, I
have not met him personally.) The conclusion I came to was that his personal
beliefs do not affect and have no bearing on his technical work.

(Broadly, I do not understand why this man is so hounded for his particular
personal beliefs.)

It is true that hundreds of thousands of engineers launched their careers
after being exposed to his books, that they are quite good at this, still
relevant — and probably the only book on electronics to sell over 1M genuine
(and many more untrackably via unauthorized reproduction etc.) copies.

~~~
pstuart
I have fond memories of his book and his writings. I was rather stunned that
somebody so intelligent would be so willingly not so in other areas. No
interest attacking him for it, but just, "Wow. really?"

We all have our quirks, don't we.

~~~
peterwwillis
I don't have a dog in this fight, but nothing I've read by him shows any
indication of being willfully unintelligent.

~~~
pstuart
Believing in Creationism is being willfully unintelligent.

One can be a Christian and not be a creationist -- that's a choice.

~~~
peterwwillis
You're saying "willfully unintelligent" as if he's explicitly trying not to be
intelligent. But that's the opposite of what's going on. He's examined the
science and he sees problems with it. He's heard the counter-arguments, and he
isn't convinced, because of what he sees as a lack of evidence.

This is the same kind of fundamental misunderstanding that separates (for
example) a white supremacist from one who is not. The general idea is that the
former is refusing to reason, examine, or use logic. But if you talk to a
white supremacist or neo-Nazi at length, you find that they have nuanced,
complex, logical explanations for their beliefs. They may be wildly
inaccurate, but that isn't to say they didn't put thought into it. Not only
that, but their positions are bolstered by the fact that there's basically no
way to completely disprove them, because it would require observing nature
over millennia, or having records we just don't have.

Calling them willfully unintelligent not only misunderstands their reasoning,
but it questions their motives. It's not just a false observation, it's an
accusation. This moves the conversation from "I don't think you're right" to
"you're a bad person". And I think that's at the core of how political and
ideological discourse is so rotten today.

~~~
pstuart
Sigh. You went to effort to make your case but I don't buy it (and resent your
conclusion of effectively blaming me for the failure of discourse today).

> You're saying "willfully unintelligent" as if he's explicitly trying not to
> be intelligent

No, I did not. He has access to the science and he also has a religious tract.
He chooses to treat that religious tract as an inerrant _literal_ depiction of
the creation of the world.

Those are competing thoughts and "willfully" means that he made a choice.

And "willfully" is kind of tricky here, because it would not surprise me if he
was raised in a Christian household that effectively brainwashed him into
these beliefs.

>And I think that's at the core of how political and ideological discourse is
so rotten today.

And I disagree. I think a huge part of the problem is religious fundamentalism
and a rejection of science.

Edit: oh, and neo-nazis and white supremacist _are bad people_ m'kay?

~~~
peterwwillis
> (and resent your conclusion of effectively blaming me for the failure of
> discourse today).

Well, I apologize. I'm not intending to blame you for anything.

> He chooses to treat that religious tract as an inerrant literal depiction of
> the creation of the world.

According to an article I read about him, that doesn't appear to be the case.
[https://books.google.com/books?id=hSsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40#v=one...](https://books.google.com/books?id=hSsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40#v=onepage&q=creationist&f=false)
Third column, halfway down: _" Mims did not become a Bible literalist."_ etc

> Those are competing thoughts and "willfully" means that he made a choice.

According to the article, Mims came to his conclusions after scientific study,
not from growing up with a bible and deciding to just go with what he learned
first. He looked at fossil records (among other things) and decided they
weren't good enough to explain things without some extra force, and "chose" an
intelligent designer as that force.

> it would not surprise me if he was raised in a Christian household that
> effectively brainwashed him into these beliefs.

He's a Texan, so I'm sure he was raised around Christianity, but he was
actually an evolutionist before he became a science writer.

> I think a huge part of the problem is religious fundamentalism and a
> rejection of science.

In this case, science brought him to God. It would be funny if the public
response and effect on his career wasn't so sad.

~~~
pstuart
Thank you for the civil dialog in what could be a very contention discussion.

If Mims was being truly scientific about the Bible then that would include
looking for finding falsifiability in the _literal_ truths of the Bible.
(Clearly I'm not religious and my take on that book is that it is, at best, a
collection of inspirational stories -- not documented fact).

I respect each individual's right to have their own relationship with "God",
including believing in things that I think are, dare I say it, stupid.

Scientific American did the wrong thing to fire him, but instead should have
had a very clear firewall to ensure that they respected his personal beliefs
and would not be associated with them.

