The Art of Electronics for 8 Bit Computers... - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: LeoDaoTao
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 03, 2023, 04:38:50 pm
content: Hi all, my first post here. I have a question about The Art of Electronics and the accompanying study manuals. I enjoy working with 8-bit computer systems, repair, and design. I have about 2 years of an EE degree completed about 20 years ago so I have some electronics background. I need to brush up on a lot of basics though so I was looking for a good book to study from in a more systematic way. I was thinking about getting The Art of Electronics and the lab manuals. My question is is it even worth getting the 3rd edition since it has been updated for more modern components? If an older edition would be better should I go for the first or second edition? I have heard that some of the components in the second are hard to find, although I may have many of them in my parts collection. I mostly want The Art of Electronics for brushing up on general electronics concepts and then moving on to Digital Design by Mano and other more specific digital electronics books. Any other approach? I want to build a solid foundation and understanding. Thank you. Leonard.

author: TomWinTejas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2023, 04:47:43 pm
content: I'm in almost the same situation. I dropped out of EE in 1996 and want to develop skills as a hobbyist. In my situation most of the classes that I took were the core like Calculus, Vector Geometry, Statics, etc... and the only real EE classes that I took were in digital design. I've decided to enroll in my local community college which offers a surprisingly wide selection of classes. It's an electronics technology curriculum so there's far less emphasis on the math and science and more on the practical, which is really what I'm after as a hobbyist.Have you done self study before, where you feel confident that you will have the discipline to go through the Art of Electronics? Even if you haven't I suppose it's worth trying... but for me I prefer having others to bounce ideas off of and work through problems.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2023, 05:26:09 pm
content: There's a static link at the top of the forum that discusses various books and such. The search feature will probably turn up a lot of threads about AoE and LtAoE. In addition, every bit of human knowledge is available on Google. Then there is ChatGPT...In my view none of these are worth a darn without lab experience. I learn by touching and not so well by reading.Here is ChatGPT's explanation of Kirchhoff's Current Law:QuoteI wish I had this thing back when I was in school!Watch videos: Dave has quite a few "Fundamental Fridays" videos and w2aew has great videos on transistors and op amps.Make friends with LTspice.For the math side of the hobby, make friends with Desmos.com (graphing), Symbolab.com (solving) and Octave (an app for all kinds of math and plotting). I use MATLAB for just about everything and Octave is a close approximation for the math part. Octave doesn't include all the extra toolkits and simulation but it does a great job at matrix algebra. Oh, and Octave is free! There's a Home license available for MATLAB but it still costs money (and subscription fees).Figure out how you're going to breadboard circuits. Got a signal source? An oscilloscope? A decent DMM? Without hardware experiments it's all just a guess.My favorite tool for experimenting is the Digilent Analog Discovery 2. It's amazing! I liked it better before they jacked up the price.OTOH... Much of hobby electronics is 'copy and paste'. How much theory do you really need? It seems like everything is revolving around uCs and the Arduino is leading the way. Everything that can be done with an Arduino has been done and it's posted to the Internet. Next step up is the Raspberry Pi. Amazon has some nice starter kits and these come with full tutorials.https://www.amazon.com/ELEGOO-Project-Tutorial-Controller-Projects/dp/B01D8KOZF4There's a lot of education in a kit like this!How about Khan Academy Electrical Engineering?https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineeringOr just Khan Academy itself for all kinds of math.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2023, 05:57:05 pm
content: If you actually want to build an 8-bit CPU, think in terms of FPGAs and look through OpenCores.org.If you want to understand the entire process of building a CPU from gates through programming, try "Introduction To Computing Systems" by Patt and Patel. The end result is a microcoded 16 bit processor that is easy to program into an FPGA.I have both the 2d and 3d editions but I built the LC3 project from the 2d edition. I didn't use microprogramming...In terms of digital, I think that has just about migrated completely to FPGAs. Digilent has some nice development boards and you will probably want to use a modern chip like one of the Artix 7s so you should get comfortable with the free Xilinx Vivado toolchain. It does great simulation so you don't even need a real device just to see how things work.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 03, 2023, 06:06:10 pm
content: Check outJames Sharmanon YouTube. He built (and is still building!) an 8-bit CPU from individual components and has everything documented over the course of four years with dozens of videos. It's evolved from an 8-bit CPU into a full blown 8-bit computer with sound, UART, and VGA with millions of colors. He has a wealth of info on his channel.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2023, 06:21:14 pm
content: There is also the very popular 6502 (?) project by Ben Eaterhttps://eater.net/8bit/And these kits based on the Z80https://rc2014.co.uk/

author: TomKatt
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2023, 06:25:29 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on March 03, 2023, 05:26:09 pm+1Those sensor kits are really inexpensive for the money and provide a wide variety of circuit types from analog twittling to bit banging digital. The 'lesson' materials may be somewhat lacking in some kits, but Google will find some examples for everything in there. The only issue is they really don't address much theory, but depending on what you want to achieve at the very least you will learn how to make similar things work in the future. For example, I don't really care about electron holes or transconductance if all I want to do is make a transistor or mosfet control something.