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Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

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Re: Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

#11

Post by timthorn »

codpiece wrote: post #7
reneberlin wrote: post #5

... and: I've identified several prominent DIY electronics magazines from the early 1980s in the US. The most promising candidates, based on the user's description, are 'Popular Electronics' and 'Byte'. 'Popular Electronics' was a highly circulated magazine that even inspired the founding of Microsoft, and it transitioned into 'Computers & Electronics' in 1982. 'Byte' was a leading computer magazine that often featur…

I loved Byte magazine! Oh, that was the best. It was likely Popular Electronics where I found the Book of the Month club, but Hobby Electronics is a good path I'll investigate, thank you!

I bought a 3 year subscription to Byte with my first paycheque. The magazine ceased publication within a couple of months :(

Re: Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

#13

Post by [deleted] »

codpiece wrote: post #10
reneberlin wrote: post #2

I tried for you with google gemini: I'm continuing to focus on visually confirming the specific illustration of the water-based machine with a video camera eye on a tripod of pontoons. My previous research has strongly pointed to Edward L. Safford Jr.'s robotics books, 'The Complete Handbook of Robotics' (1978) and 'Handbook of Advanced Robotics' (1982), both published by TAB Books, as the most likely candidates for…

TAB books does seem to be the publisher of the book of the month series, thank you for that!

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

#14

Post by ugh123 »

reneberlin wrote: post #2

I tried for you with google gemini: I'm continuing to focus on visually confirming the specific illustration of the water-based machine with a video camera eye on a tripod of pontoons. My previous research has strongly pointed to Edward L. Safford Jr.'s robotics books, 'The Complete Handbook of Robotics' (1978) and 'Handbook of Advanced Robotics' (1982), both published by TAB Books, as the most likely candidates for…

Seems to be downvoted for using AI, but ironically (or expectedly?) OP has confirmed knowledge gained from it

Re: Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

#16

Post by bitwize »

Sounds like BASIC Computer Games by David Ahl.

Link to book's contents (Ahl released his works into the public domain): https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/

Artwork example: https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=8...

(Was this your pontoon bot? I think those are supposed to be ice skates...)

Re: Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

#17

Post by Stratoscope »

slackpad wrote: post #3

Forrest Mims did a bunch of interesting hand drawings like that back then but I don’t recall the specific book or image you are thinking of. I’m curious to see if you find it - it sounds up my alley too.

You must be thinking of The Forrest Mims Engineer's Notebook or his Engineer's Mini-Notebook or Getting Started in Electronics.

The Engineer's Notebook is still in print:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1878707035

If you download the free Kindle sample, it has some of the illustrations, but mostly just individual components.

This Reddit post has a couple of pages from Getting Started:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ECE/comments/ik1gw4/from_the_book_g...

The Internet Archive has the complete Mini-Notebook:

https://archive.org/details/Forrest_Mims-Engineers_Mini-Note...

Re: Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

#18

Post by bitpush »

reneberlin wrote: post #4

Maybe you remember the cover, too? Is it one of these? https://imgs.search.brave.com/KLbQPx02Oqq9Fgsg-AzyhQo_Y_FVRA... https://imgs.search.brave.com/ZNxGI_CJ_3QOkgR3dV2MGjIS8OQyE_...

[offtopic]

TIL that brave rehosts images from the internet onto brave.com, and crucially serve them universally. That cant be .. legal. If I have an image on my website, that cannot be "redistributed" without permission.

https://search.brave.com/images?q=apple%20macbook%20pro

Re: Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

#19

Post by LarryMade2 »

bitwize wrote: post #16

Sounds like BASIC Computer Games by David Ahl. Link to book's contents (Ahl released his works into the public domain): https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/ Artwork example: https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=8... (Was this your pontoon bot? I think those are supposed to be ice skates...)

I tink this was the one on pontoons -

https://archive.org/details/More_BASIC_Computer_Games/page/n...

Re: Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

#20

Post by codpiece »

bitwize wrote: post #16

Sounds like BASIC Computer Games by David Ahl. Link to book's contents (Ahl released his works into the public domain): https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/ Artwork example: https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=8... (Was this your pontoon bot? I think those are supposed to be ice skates...)

Oh, these are so great! It really does look like the illustrator! Especially this one: https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=9... Thank you!
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