Name: Electronic principles
ISBN: 9780028028330

What Hacker News says

RossBencinaJan 2026

> Honestly, just pick up the Art of Electronics

I got this advice in 1998. I have the book. I found it useful for the "art" part. It got me through the projects that I was working on at the time, but personally it didn't help me with the fundamentals. Paraphrasing what has been said on this site many times in the past: AoE is a great first book in practical electronics if you already have an undergraduate degree in physics. I showed my brother AoE when he was building guitar pedals and he couldn't make sense of it and said it was obviously assuming things that he didn't know (he had no high-school science background).

There are a lot of potential and/or assumed pre-requistites even for basic electronics: high school physics, first-year calculus, maybe a differential equations course, certainly familiarity with complex numbers. As I understand it EEs take vector calculus and classical electromagnetism, that's a long road for self-study. For that reason it's hard to give general advice about where to begin.

For someone starting out I think the first things to study are DC and then AC analysis of passive circuits (networks of resistors, capacitors, inductors), starting with networks of resistors. Ohms Law, what current and voltage actually mean, some basic introduction to the physics passive components. This is the basics, and I don't see AoE getting anyone over this hump. This could be learnt in many ways, electronics technicians and amateur radio people know this stuff -- there are no doubt courses outside university both on line and in person. If we're talking books, get a second hand copy of Grob's "Basic Electronics." Once that's covered you can move on to semiconductors. I can recommend Malvino's "Electronic Principles," but this book won't teach you about resistors, capacitors and inductors. After that I think the Art of Electronics would be approachable. And also more specialised topics like digital design or operational amplifier circuits.

A book that usually gets a mention is Paul Scherz "Practical Electronics for Inventors." I got that book later, I personally found it a bit overwhelming with the mixture of really basic practical stuff combined with more advanced circuit theory, but it's no doubt popular for a reason.

Another standard recommendation is to buy one ARRL Handbook from each decade (I have 1988), the older ones have less advanced (hence more accessible) material. But reading the "Electronics Fundamentals" chapter is no substitute for Grob and Malvino.

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RossBencinaDec 2023

After Dick Smith's fun way books as an early teenager AoE was my first "real" electronics book. It was certainly helpful for practical advice, but I did not find its presentation of circuit theory at all clear (the hand-wavy analogy about transistor man comes to mind). At the time I had a music degree and very little undergraduate mathematics and only high-school physics.

More recently I've been dabbling with electronics again. Someone recommended Malvino's "Electronic Principles" (I bought the 5th Edition second hand), which I found much clearer for circuit theory than AoE. Sedra and Smith will probably be my next purchase but I doubt it should be your first.

Also, "beginner" could mean a lot of different things. And perhaps more important than where you're at, where do you want to get to? There's a world of difference between (1) soldering together someone else's design, (2) being able to understand why someone else's design works, (3) being able to piece something together from common sub-circuits, (4) produce your own design from scratch. And all of these will vary depending on the circuit type: analog/digital/RF etc.

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nickpsecurityNov 2017

I do look forward to seeing answers that are web tutorials as I'm trying to start in that area. Most good resources are books or courses, though. I'll give you a bit of that. For digital, the NAND2Tetris course or book at least get people hooked on it with some of the basics:

http://nand2tetris.org/book.php

For analog electronics and PCB's, the latest list of books I found was this:

http://www.circuitstoday.com/4-great-books-to-study-basic-el...

Malvin's Electronic Principles, which I got for $2 on Amazon, was also much more readable than Horowitz and Hill. Another thing to know is resources are usually almost all hands-on or all theory. Gammel's Contextual Electronics course that bradfa links to below was said to be in the middle somewhere. Also, if digital, you might want to make a note of "High-Speed, Digital Design" for later along with some book on verification either formal or "design-for-testing." Some people also do FPGA cookbooks and such if they're working with them. For RF, most people have one by ARRL or something whose name I can't recall. Finally, for electromagnetic compatibility testing, the great article and conversation linked below has a book in it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15440411

Hope some of this helps.

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nickpsecurityJun 2017

This looked promising:

https://contextualelectronics.com

Also, get some edition of Malvino's Electronic Principles. Easiest to understand book I saw looking into electronics.

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nickpsecurityDec 2016

I asked an EE about that but got warned it's more like a reference book. He said the easiest book on electronics he ever saw was a Malvino book he stumbled on in a thrift store. I found one of its editions for $2 on Amazon. Great balance of explaining the basics, showing math, and practical advice of do's & don't.

https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Principles-Simulation-Albe...

Also just found this. Use it as backup copy if you buy the book.

http://www.talkingelectronics.com/Download/Malvino_Electroni...

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nickpsecurityJun 2016

Any of you doing that might try Malvino's Electronic Principles. An EE recommended it to me as explaining the stuff better than most with some practical advice mixed in. Got a relevant edition for under $3 on Amazon. Finally understand quite a few things.

Still suffers from general problem with electronics books where I hardly know where to start on building real things. People have been recommending Chris Gammel's courses or certain kits for that, though.

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