Some tips please about going through Art of Electronics

[SingedFingers]

Heres the same thing on my £10 ($15) analogue daily driver (Philips PM3217) being driven by my HP3312A. Sweep at top, output at bottom. Triggering on sweep. Circuit is an RC low pass:



Learning to make do with cheap crap first should be a rite of passage.

Edit: this is its sorry ass when I got it and it has blown up spectacularly twice but it will not die:



Oh and it's only a few years younger than me

I might be a TEA thread member but the old stuff feels better to use than nanovolt 99 digit golden poop meters and 4K screen scopes

[eugenenine]

Mine is an oldie like that too



https://goo.gl/photos/Zj5EXoqUfXNK2GSKA

ok, both google and photobucket suck

[JacquesBBB]

Thanks for this info. I think I'll use Kahn University videos to supplement Appendix A.

TAoE does not contain much mathematics. Not much more than what is in appendix A.

When I  got TAoE for the first time, (2nd edition), I went entirely through the full book with a lot of pleasure,
but  I cannot believe that anyone can  master the book after a  unique reading.
The material is so dense, that afterwards,  you will come back to some specific chapters, and
always find something new in your reading.

This is the sign of a good book, that has been written with care.  I  have read part of  the 3rd edition, and many part have been largely improved compared to the 2nd edition.
You will never loose  the time you spend reading  TAoE.

[electrolust]

HP 48GX style calc, color, touch screen and an all metal stylish enclosure would be dandy adn I bet many engineers would pay $300 for it like they did back in the 90's for the 48GX.

Did engineers actually buy the 48GX, or did they hang on to it from their university days?

Nowadays wouldn't an engineer just want software (avoiding the limiting calculator interface), or for simpler stuff a calc app like https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scientific-graphing-calculator-2/id1066347637?mt=8?  Even if the calculator were just $30.

An actual calculator is great but limited.  Perfect for university so that you only have the calculator and can't "cheat".

ps. love my 48GX but can't recall the last time I really used it for anything non-trivial.

[Tom45]

Wow...is the slide rule really that quick? Impressive!

For many calculations, the slide rule is indeed much faster. For e^x just set the cursor to x and read off the result on the proper scale.

Here's an example for x=6:





The cursor is set to 6. On the bottom scale e⁶ is a little over 400. Next scale up is e^0.6=1.822, and then e^0.06=1.068,   e^0.006=1.0062.

Turn it over and you can get e^-6 through e^-0.006 in the same way with no further slide or cursor movements.

[rstofer]

Calculators are more complicated than that.  Some have CAS (Computer Algebra System features - like factoring polynomials) and these features have to be disabled for some standardized tests.  So, for the homework, you can 'run what you brung' but when you take the tests, you have to do without.  The HP48GX can probably run as-is for these tests and it's better the devil you know.

I've mentioned (too many times) that I am helping my grandson with Calc I.  We have the bar in the kitchen set up as a "homework station".  A pair of 27" monitors, two Surface pads, a color laserjet, 2 HP48GXs and a bunch of quadrille paper (engineers draw pictures!).  The calculators get the most work when we're dealing with numeric problems.  Trig and some word problems tend to be numeric.  Limits?  Not so much...  There is simply no way we would want to do without the HP48GXs.  And the TI nspire and the HP Prime are sitting on the counter, unused!

The touch and feel of a real calculator far surpasses the emulations.  Tactile response, button sizes, hand motion, all of the ergo things favor the real calculator.

Now, when it's time to see how to solve a problem, we head over to symbolab.com.  If we just want to see a quick graph, it's off to desmos.com.  Maybe a Khan Academy video...  That's the reason there are two tablets and displays.  We're working here, not just fooling around!  Homework runs around 70-80 problems per week and we spend on the order of 15 hours per week working them.  Sometimes more, sometimes less but, still, a lot of time!

[rstofer]

The cursor is set to 6. On the bottom scale e⁶ is a little over 400.

And getting the number of digits correct is an exercise left to the user.  The scale reads 4 and you know it is 400 because just a bit to the left, the scale reads 50, 100 then 2, 3 & 4 obviously multiples of 100.  Sometimes it's not so obvious.

[eugenenine]

HP 48GX style calc, color, touch screen and an all metal stylish enclosure would be dandy adn I bet many engineers would pay $300 for it like they did back in the 90's for the 48GX.

Did engineers actually buy the 48GX, or did they hang on to it from their university days?

Nowadays wouldn't an engineer just want software (avoiding the limiting calculator interface), or for simpler stuff a calc app like https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scientific-graphing-calculator-2/id1066347637?mt=8?  Even if the calculator were just $30.

An actual calculator is great but limited.  Perfect for university so that you only have the calculator and can't "cheat".

ps. love my 48GX but can't recall the last time I really used it for anything non-trivial.

I paid $300 for my SX (before the GX in case you don't know).

I do have droid48 on my phone and tablet and X48 on my laptop (I learned to stay away from anything Apple) but the feel just isn't the same as the real thing.  This is one place where HP stood out above the rest and why we paid the extra, they didn't have cheap rubber buttons like the other brands, they had real keys with the quality of an adding machine or older computer keyboard.

[tggzzz]

The cursor is set to 6. On the bottom scale e⁶ is a little over 400.

And getting the number of digits correct is an exercise left to the user.

And a good thing too. It means you have to think about the expected results and what you are seeing. That reduces the "but the computer say so" thinking-avoidance syndrome.