Relays -- outdated book?

[MrAureliusR]

I just got this book from my library -- it's a few years old (1988 -- same year I was born ) and there seems to be a lot of good info in it. I just got to the part about rotary switches and relays -- I attached a scan of the first page about relays. I'll also scan a few other pages, I'm just checking to see if you guys think it's decent info or if anything seems off or too dated.

EDIT: Resized the images, always forget to do that

[MrAureliusR]

Filters --

[Neilm]

Relays haven't changed much over the years. Details might have been changed but the underlying technology is still the same - current flowing through a coil attracts a movable bit of metal that opens (or closes) a contact.

[Bored@Work]

The basics of filters also haven't changed much. Since I am a fan of first getting the basics right that book should still be ok.

However, above the basics things have changed. The times that you looked through a 600 page filter catalog to find a suitable filter for a particular application are largely gone. There might be some niche areas where this is still done, but for garden-variety filters one punches a few numbers into a filter design software and get it simulated. What numbers to punch in? Well, that's when knowing your basics comes into play.

Then there is the now much more popular field of digital filters, something already theoretically known in the 80th, but not very widely used then.

[MrAureliusR]

I'm actually flipping through it in more detail now, and I'm quite amazed at the detail and complexity, considering the time and the target audience. By the 6th chapter, they're helping you read TV and Radio schematics (quite complex ones, that had basic digital logic) and near the end of the book it goes into much more detail about digital logic. The first half is dedicated to explaining components and their functions in details.

I'm very impressed with this book and would highly recommend it to beginners!

How To Read Electronic Circuit Diagrams, 2nd Ed.
Robert Brown, Paul Lawrence, James Whitson
(c) 1988
TAB Books, Inc

The first edition was in 1970 (so I guess they needed a 2nd edition by 1988!! I'm guessing they basically rewrote it considering the differences in those 18 years).

[G7PSK]

Virtually no old book is invalid ( I wont go into religious texts) any information is good and very often you find information in old books that for whatever reasons are dropped from modern texts and that help with problems especially in older equipment.
But then I am biased as I collect old technical books.