

Ask HN: An alternative to Horowitz and Hill? - jgrahamc

Can anyone recommend an alternative text to Horowitz and Hill?  Although I think it's a great reference text and is full of useful circuits, there are times when I wish H &#38; H were more pedagogic.  Is there a good 'learning' book that would complement H &#38; H?
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joe_bleau
You do know that there is a companion hands-on lab book for AofE, right?
[http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Student-Manual-
Exercis...](http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Student-Manual-
Exercises/dp/0521377099)

The ARRL handbook is also a very practical intro text, but quite broad.

[edit] Oh, another decent book that's aimed at technician level students:
Electronic Principles by Malvino. I've got an older edition from my high
school days, and it's a real easy read with lots of explanation of transistor
circuits. [http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Principles-Albert-
Malvino/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Principles-Albert-
Malvino/dp/0028028333/)

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RiderOfGiraffes
I've just pulled out my H&H and had a look. It's terse, but its explanations
are pretty complete. Looking at one circuit and trying to work out why it
works I had to back-trcak through several earlier sections, but it seemed
pretty clear.

I'm not sure what else you'd be looking for. Pedagogically if you start from
the front and work carefully through it then I think it would be hard to beat
it.

I can't help but feel that anything more targetted at teaching would be 5
times the size, or cover one fifth the ground. Can you be more specific about
how you feel it falls short?

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jgrahamc
I guess my problem is that I ended up feeling it's too terse. I read chunks of
it years ago when I studied electronics and I've be working through it from
the beginning as a way to occupy my bus commute (along with 8,000 other things
:-) and there are times when it's a bit infuriating because it's so terse.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
I think it's a "Read like math" not a "Read like prose" situation. The best
learning mantra is "See one, Do one, Teach one" and I think they've conflated
the first two parts of that. They give you the information, but force you to
work through it to achieve understanding.

Beyond that attempt at helping you to find the right attitude with which to
approach the book, I no further advice.

I'd be interested in hearing why you're catching up on electronics of this
type. Maybe we really should have a London meetup.

~~~
jgrahamc
_I'd be interested in hearing why you're catching up on electronics of this
type._

Mostly because I like making physical things and electronics is something that
I know some things about.

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npk
Sparkfun just started selling a book called "Electrical Engineering 101". I've
never read it, but I imagine it's pretty good.

Do you have access to a good electronics lab? A lab + H&H might be sufficient.
I learned 80% of my electronics this way, but the last 20% was learned from
old crusty EEs. If you don't have access to a lab, you can build your own
(oscilloscope, function generator, power supply) for a few hundred dollars. I
don't know where you can find old crusty EEs.

