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The. Art. Of. Electronics. I bought this as a sophomore in high school and was completely blown away by it. The chapter on PLLs alone is worth the price of the

• cop359 15y ago
  I dunno. That book is really dense and terse. It's a good reference book, but not something you'd read cover to cover.
  • hobin 15y ago
    "That book is really dense [...]" Yes, that's sort of the point. ;) Most textbooks that contain a lot of math and science-y stuff are that way. Also, you don't have to read a textbook cover to cover - I know I didn't in college.
  • DanBC 15y ago
    But you should read it cover to cover. You should buy a notebook; and some basic electronics equipment (and there's probably free simulation that's good enough online now) and work through it. Draw the diagrams (freehand!), do the math (on paper, not with a calculator!), do the examples. It's dense because it's complete (for the time, there's a lot of stuff that's missing for modern world) and it's terse because you're supposed to be doing the work at the same time. And, if you really want to get in depth understanding you buy the AoE Lab-book and build stuff while you're reading the main text.
• rmcclellan 15y ago
  I have mixed feelings about this book. It's how I learned electronics, so I can't knock it too much. However, sometimes the explanations, which tend to be intuitive rather than logical, can be quite hard to follow for someone who is more methodically-minded. So, for the nitty-gritty analog stuff in the bipolar transistor chapter of AoE, I much prefer "Design of Analog Integrated Circuits" by Gray and Meyer. It works for discrete circuits, too, even though integrated is in the name.