I have a MS in CSCI, PhD in cognitive psych, but know nothing at all about electronics. Is this a reasonable first book? I ask bc somebody compared it to TAOCP which I would not recommend to somebody with zero CSCI/programming skills.
EDIT: thanks for the feedback, I'll look elsewhere to get my feet wet.
There is a lot of good introductory type material, but the book treats many slightly advanced topics as though they are casual, and skips around topics plenty. An example would be how quickly (within the 1st chapter) Thevenin circuits come up. I remember taking an entire semester to get to these in my EE coursework.
Many may say otherwise, but I would argue that this is a better reference than it is a book to learn electronics from the ground up, but that doesn't mean that you can't use it as a guide as you learn and look elsewhere for missing info.
I disagree with the below and would recommend this book.
See my other comment on this thread for more details. But basically I took Physics 123 at Harvard, and AoE sprang from the professor's lecture notes. When I took the class in the late 90's, It was taught by Horowiz and Hayes, as Hill had left previously to do his own thing.
The class had many people from non-hard-science disciplines who didn't know anything about electronics. I specifically remember a couple of psych students. They all did great, see comment above on what we build at the ends of the analog and digital halves of a one-semester course.
The student lab manual written by Horowiz and Hayes, from which we did our class labs, also gives great context and a hands-on plan to learning the material.
I also knew a few artists in the Boston scene that used this book to build actual electronic items for performance art shows, including robo-mechanical drum machines and analog synths.
If you are looking to tinker on projects, kits, etc., other tutorials/books may get you the basic starter info faster. You don't need a deep knowledge to just start playing around.
However, if you are looking to gain a serious academic level of familiarity w/ electronics to the point where you can design, build and analyze your own functional electronic systems, then this is the book. It will give you the foundation you need to build any analog, digital, or hybrid system.
Some fun examples of things we built when I took the class: AM/FM radio, microphones, audio speakers, amplifiers, analog to digital converters, and a breadboard computer built and programmed entirely from basic component parts.
AoE is comparable to TAOCP only in legendary status. As a point of reference, AoE is the standard textbook for teaching practical electronics to undergraduate physics students at many universities (e.g. UC Berkeley).
EDIT: thanks for the feedback, I'll look elsewhere to get my feet wet.