Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!world!jon_sree From: jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: TAB books Message-ID: Date: 9 May 91 14:35:58 GMT References: <1991May6.003753.8745@ritcsh.csh.rit.edu> <1991May9.030837.8106@midway.uchicago.edu> Sender: jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth) Organization: The World Lines: 41 In-Reply-To: popelka@odysseus.uchicago.edu's message of 9 May 91 03: 08:37 GMT In article <1991May9.030837.8106@midway.uchicago.edu> popelka@odysseus.uchicago.edu (Glenn Popelka) writes: I made the mistake of joining their Engineering Book Club in the late 70's, and I found glaring errors in just about every book I got. I would avoid *any* TAB book, no matter how attractive the title. The subject matter seemed to be very shallow, and the editing poor. They don't seem to have changed much... I personally wouldn't go that far. I've seen some good material from TAB. But then I don't buy TAB books for schematics. Errors in schematics seem to be a fact of life. Many popular magazine schematics, like in Radio Electronics, contain occasional bugs. I suspect it's because electronics hobbyists don't use CAD tools, or at least not all the way. Ideally, a project should be entered into a schematic tool, and the netlist from the schematic should go into a PCB layout tool, and its output to a plotter. PCB fixes should be back annotated to the schematic. Then consistency is assured, at least to the limit of bugs in the CAD software itself. I remember a time when software listings in do-it-yourself articles were error-prone. Then publishers got wise and instead of re-typing the source code, they directly inserted a line-printed source code listing, the same source code that generated the correct executable. If its helps, try to use schematics from magazines, and wait a couple of issues for errata and bug reports, from other brave souls. In a book like "454 circuits you can assemble in a single evening", it's almost a certainity that there will be some errors. Books like this are best used for picking up circuit techniques, not for actual schematics, (IMHO). Regards, / Jon Sreekanth Assabet Valley Microsystems Fax and PC products 346 Lincoln St #722, Marlboro, MA 01752 508-562-0722 jon_sree@world.std.com