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Forrest Mimms Has Done Much More Than Most Engineers Know (hackaday.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the seeing-the-forrest-for-the-trees dept.

szczys writes: If you've been anywhere near the field of electronic design, the name Forrest Mimms (the 3rd) is familiar. He wrote the book on electronics, and is heavily associated with the publications found in every Radio Shack. His entire life has been one prolific science experiment after another, which is why the title of Citizen Scientist fits so perfectly. For example, he invented and has used on a daily basis a device to measure ozone in the atmosphere. It worked so well he discovered and reported a calibration error in NASA's measurements, which are made with satellites.

105 comments

  1. Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Radio Shack that the summary is referring to is your granddaddy's Radio Shack, where overpriced electronic parts, kits and tools were available just around the corner. If you had a battery card, you could pick up a free 9-volt battery every month for your transistor radio.

    1. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by p51d007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Last winter, we had need for a replacement electrolytic cap for the driver board on a hall effect motor on a gear drive assembly, since the old one had a bad design. I walked into a RS store (city population around 200,000). I told him I needed a 100uf 25v electrolytic capacitor. The teenage looking (to me) genius looked back at me, like I was talking a different language. "Back in the day" (early 70's), say the same thing in an RS, and they would walk you right to it, probably ask you what you were using it for, discuss circuits, talk about electronics, ham radio (since I am one), SW radio and all sorts of things. Now, the only thing they know are phones, phone cases and the like.

    2. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if you had several Radio Shacks within biking distance, you kept several cards going... but it was for the crappy red batteries. The Radio Shack golden alkaline cells were phenomenal. I still have some AAA cells that are over 20 years old and they still work. No leaks.

      Try that with modern Duracells.

    3. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Last winter, we had need for a replacement electrolytic cap for the driver board on a hall effect motor on a gear drive assembly, since the old one had a bad design. I walked into a RS store (city population around 200,000). I told him I needed a 100uf 25v electrolytic capacitor. The teenage looking (to me) genius looked back at me, like I was talking a different language.

      Ah, yes. RS's motto - "You have questions, we have blank stares."

    4. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh you mean the Radio Shack that is no more than 6000 years old and was created out of thin air by the Sky Magician®?

    5. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      20 year old AAA cells that still work? What are you using them in? A pencil?

    6. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Dog-Cow · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'd stare too, if a ham radio entered my store and asked me a question.

    7. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Deadstick · · Score: 1

      Back in the 80's, the RS manager in my local mall kept a hidden stash of quality components for ham customers...tempus fugit.

    8. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

      and they would walk you right to it, probably ask you what you were using it for, discuss circuits, talk about electronics, ham radio (since I am one), SW radio and all sorts of things. Now, the only thing they know are phones, phone cases and the like.

      Yep, I used to enjoy talking to the RS employees- they were mostly hobbyists and enthusiasts and they knew stuff. They were into the gear they sold and would happily debate the difference between the NE555 and the LM555CN timer.

      Now I would bet that not one out of a thousand of them knows what Ohm's Law is, or has even heard of it. They can barely tell you the differences between the different shitty phones they sell.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    9. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I did that for a while as a teenager until my best friend and his friends broke into one of the Radio Shack store. They used a glass cutter to cut the glass out from the frame at ground level without setting off the alarm. Two were skinny enough to crawl through. The third was too fat and used the glass to cut an opening to unlock the front doors. Needless to say, the cops were waiting for them when they came out. Although I had nothing to do with the heist (except die from laughter when I heard the details), I was no longer welcomed at that store.

    10. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >The teenage looking (to me) genius looked back at me, like I was talking a different language.

      About a decade ago, I learned that if you want something that isn't "Ooh, new shiny bauble", from Radio Shack, then one had to look through all of the shelves, and open all of the cases, to find it. More than once, having been told by a store manager that they didn't have something, I've found the item in a case, and deliberately taken the cash wrap line the manager was at, to tell them "This is the item that you said your store didn't carry."

    11. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a toy micro remote control car at the office that was bought 8 years ago. It has two watch batteries in series in it. Once in a while I turn the car on and try to run it, it still is working. I would have expected the watch batteries to deplete from internal resistance alone, it is magic.

      We electronic engineers fantasise that the batteries get accidentally recharged by the sun through the infrared receiver on the car

    12. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow you sound like a real nice guy to hang out with.

    13. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      imagine the guy which is pulling this prank on his colleague, changing batteries after work hours week after week for more than 8 years

    14. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      The Radio Shack that the summary is referring to is your granddaddy's Radio Shack, where overpriced electronic parts, kits and tools were available just around the corner. If you had a battery card, you could pick up a free 9-volt battery every month for your transistor radio.

      Ah yes, back when Radio Shack was named because well, it was for Ham Radio enthusiasts to get all they need. Remember, this was the day where if you used Digikey, you were looking at a 4-6 week turnaround for parts, unless you worked for a company and had the luxury of a fax machine, or a long distance phone call and could place an order the same day. The rest of us filled out order forms, added a stamp, and mailed it in.

      I did like going to Radio Shack - got to know the employees quite well back when I was young (the 80s). Then something in the early 00's, Tandy Corp pulled the license on the name from Radio Shack Canada, and our stores were bought up by Circuit City (The Source - By Circuit City). Then CC folded, and we still have The Source. But it's really just a sadder version of Best Buy.

    15. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got some Radio Shack alkaline AA's that are at least 20 years old that still work. I got them at the same time that I bought my digital multimeter. I keep them inside the zipper pouch that holds the meter, and only put them in it when I need to measure something, probably no more than once or twice a year. I've mostly moved away from hardware hacking, which is why I use it so rarely now.

    16. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd stare too, if a ham radio entered my store and asked me a question.

      I wouldn't. I would eat it. Hmmmm, bacon...

    17. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      Being nice to stupid just allows it to propagate.

    18. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-x-100uF-25V-105C-Radial-Electrolytic-Capacitor-6x11mm-Free-Shipping-/250965968872?hash=item3a6ebcc7e8

      ONE dolla including shipping!

    19. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The clerks at Radio Shack are paid minimum wage or commission. Except for Christmas, the commission never got higher than the minimum wage... at least that was the case 20 years ago. I doubt that's changed much at all. Do you really expect a minimum wage employee to be an electrical engineer? It's simply not going to happen. If Radio Shack paid more, they'd get more knowledgeable employees, but they don't and they won't, so just be happy that you still have a place to find a part on demand that day and not through mail order.

    20. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Radio Shack that the summary is referring to is your granddaddy's Radio Shack, where overpriced electronic parts, kits and tools were available just around the corner. If you had a battery card, you could pick up a free 9-volt battery every month for your transistor radio.

      Radio Shack still sells Mimms' books. They even have some of his stuff available for download. They still have kits and parts too.

    21. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by show+me+altoids · · Score: 1

      Damn, I wish I had some mod points!

      --
      I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
    22. Re:Not that Radio Shack, the OTHER Radio Shack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember that old Radio Shack back in the day, too. As a high school senior, I was excited to work for them during late 1986. I wanted to be the nice guy that worked there when I was in elementary and middle school who used to give me advice about the circuit I was building from a schematic in a book or magazine. (I still have my SN76477N synthesizer chip - might finally build something out of it all these years later!)

      Then I learned that my old Radio Shack was going away because I was scolded for talking too long to customers in the components section and not selling at least one extended warranty each day.

  2. Radio What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That place that sells crap cell phones?

    1. Re:Radio What? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      That's the Apple Store. But they're not crap, just overpriced.

  3. RadioShack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't think they've sold any of the books in years.

    1. Re:RadioShack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What's puzzling is they either missed or ignored the rise of the whole maker/hacker space movement that's happening right now. Kids are getting back into building and tinkering with stuff, but RadioShack is DOA. Their whole business model is completely incoherent. They should have dominated this space.

    2. Re:RadioShack by rfengr · · Score: 1

      There have always been kids who makes stuff. It just seems recent since they blog about it now. Internet sales killed off RS' business.

    3. Re:RadioShack by rfengr · · Score: 0

      Oh, and I have a home lab. I don't need a fucking maker/hacker space.

    4. Re:RadioShack by ThatsDrDangerToYou · · Score: 2

      What's puzzling is they either missed or ignored the rise of the whole maker/hacker space movement that's happening right now. Kids are getting back into building and tinkering with stuff, but RadioShack is DOA. Their whole business model is completely incoherent. They should have dominated this space.

      ^--This. What happened, apparently, is they tried to be everything. You want cellphones? Sure, we've got that. Computers? Sure. Electronics? Well, we'll see what we have left in terms of shelf space... The suits want profits, and don't want to miss out on whatever the next big thing is. I'm sure their electronics hobbyist business generates very small profits compared with, for example, smartphones. I think their business model just played itself out.

    5. Re:RadioShack by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Is that why I can't buy anything from radioshacks website?
      The online store has said it was coming back soon for quite some time now.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    6. Re:RadioShack by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      My locak Radio Shack has been conducting a clearance sale. The whole front end of the store now only sells Sprint phones and Virgin Mobile, who are a Sprint derivative.

      But there's still a whole back half of the store that is Radio Shack. Some of the stuff back there is clearance priced, as they're resorting the inventory. But there are still electronics tools, the big cabinet with drawers full of parts, and some of the Adruino and kit stuff isn't clearance priced. There's still a market for electronics hobby stuff here. It might suck more in other areas of the country, I suppose.

      It is really sad that we all are so much looking after our Radio Shacks which a decade ago many of us worked at actively scorning. Digi-Key delivers really fast, and have since before 'the Web' took the market over. Maybe some of it is nostalgia, looking back at the time when you'd drop into the Radio Shack just to browse and maybe get the inspiration for that next project. That part of it is gone.

    7. Re:RadioShack by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Radio Shack is currently in bankruptcy proceedings. Most stores were closed. The remaining thousand or so stores are partnering with Sprint. Radio Shack as website portal may come back someday.

    8. Re:RadioShack by CRCulver · · Score: 1

      It wasn't internet sales. By the time internet shopping came along, RadioShack had long since lost business to mail-order catalogs. When I became interested in amateur radio in the mid-1990s, few Radio Shacks still had a decent range of components for building your own circuit boards, as hams had increasingly turned to big catalogs that offered a larger selection.

    9. Re:RadioShack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MBAs (seriously, that's what happened)

    10. Re:RadioShack by PPH · · Score: 1

      Sprint phones

      Aren't they going out of business? They are pulling the plug on ClearWire and haven't expanded their mobile/data coverage into a few of the wealthier neighborhoods around me.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    11. Re:RadioShack by cnaumann · · Score: 1

      Yeah, if only they had carried Arduino boards or something.

    12. Re:RadioShack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Im modding so posting this anon.

      The truth is they dropped the ball back in the 1980's. When the XT/286/386 systems were the rage they tried to cut out the parts sales and sell whole systems, TV's, etc. They missed the market they had. People who went there loved to build and tinker. They should have sold computer kits to build your own, parts, cards, mother boards, processors, isa development boards, etc. Instead they cut down the kits and tried to sell whole computers, Tv's, VHS Cams, Stereos, etc.

      They lost touch with the community that builds, tinkers, and makes things. As such they missed the Arduino's, Raspberry Pi's, 3D printers, etc, etc.

      Ill NOTE that I worked for them in the late 1980's. During a quarterly meeting I put forward the suggestion that they should cater to the people building computers and stock more pieces/parts for it. The response from the VP on the phone was "We are trying to become the customers, go to store, for all things electronic. We really don't want to alienate them with complex computer parts and jargon."

    13. Re:RadioShack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With the death of Radio Shack, it would be totally cool if Digikey opened maker-friendly shops where you could go in and ask " I need something that connects this to this" and they squint for a moment and viola! They hand you some Picoblades, wires and try to get you buy one of their uber-priced crimpers :-)

      A digikey shop filled with components, 3D printers and other stuff would be like a candy store to me...

    14. Re:RadioShack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Oh, and I have a home lab. I don't need a fucking maker/hacker space.

      It's okay that you don't want to share your toys. Some of us do.

    15. Re:RadioShack by publiclurker · · Score: 1

      Radio shack screwed themselves over years before the maker movement took hold. If they hadn't become nothing more than a cellphone re-seller, then maybe they would be a source of makers stuff like they were a source of computers back in the 80's

    16. Re: RadioShack by RLaager · · Score: 1

      Digi-Key is always hiring.

    17. Re:RadioShack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RadioShack's demise follows the throw-away society trend. With cheap consumer electronics gadgets commonly available, when one breaks, one need not fix it, just buy a new one. If it does not have the features you desire, someone will make one cheaply that does. You don't need to bother to learn how it works or how to fix it. Brick and mortar stores have fixed costs associated with the amount of shelf space in the store. If they don't have enough sales of the items on the shelves, they will either go out of business or be forced to increase the price of the items on the shelves. As the competition from internet vendors eroded their market with wider selection and lower prices their market for electronic components was limited to the niche of those who need something the same day. RadioShack could no longer afford to hire people who knew anything about electronics as a result. Add this all up, and it comes as no surprise that many stores needed to close. The Maker community will likely not support them enough for the remaining stores to survive in the electronic component vendor industry. This is a shame as the RadioShack of old would have been a perfect fit for those just getting started with electronics. The current desire to foster STEM education is also poorly timed in regard to RadioShack's demise.

    18. Re: RadioShack by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      I'm not that big a fan of sports fishing to want to live in Thief River Falls.

  4. I consider Mims a mentor by srone · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was introduced to Forrest Mim's books, by browsing through a Radio Shack about 1974. I was into model rocketry and trying to learn basic electronics at the time and found his material very instructive. I consider him a gift to anyone trying to gain insight in electronics, from the level of a hobbyist all the way to a professional.

    --
    "Endeavour to persevere"
    1. Re:I consider Mims a mentor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Very true. Glad I didn't know about his ultra-wacko religious beliefs until much later in life. Whether consciously or not, I definitely would have held him in a lower regard.

      Maybe unfair but it's just the truth and I suspect others would have felt the same.

    2. Re:I consider Mims a mentor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All I can see in Wikipedia is Christian believing in creationism ... are you an ultra-bigot or is there more to the story?

    3. Re:I consider Mims a mentor by danmoran · · Score: 1

      His "Engineer's Notebook" series were simple to understand and a useful companion to data sheets when I was first trying to "grok" linear and TTL electronics.

    4. Re:I consider Mims a mentor by nbauman · · Score: 2

      I was introduced to Forrest Mim's books, by browsing through a Radio Shack about 1974. I was into model rocketry and trying to learn basic electronics at the time and found his material very instructive. I consider him a gift to anyone trying to gain insight in electronics, from the level of a hobbyist all the way to a professional.

      Me too. My father started out as an airline mechanic in World War II. He used to repair the instruments in the cockpits of supply planes and bombers, and (after the war) commercial airliners. They were like electromechanical cuckoo clocks. I used to play with electromagnets in my playpen.

      They were constantly retraining him in the new technology, but after a while, the integrated circuit boards came in, and the transistors, and he couldn't keep up with the kids who just got out of the Air Force. So (thanks to his union) they gave him an easy job until he retired.

      Also about 1974 I was working for an organization that was developing some 8086 products, and out of curiosity, I wanted to learn more about these new IC chips. I went to Radio Shack, picked up a few of Forrest Mimms' books, bought a breadboard and a few components, and tried some of his projects. The first non-trivial one was a 555 timer circuit. I had it flashing LEDs, and beeping a speaker, with the rate controlled by a variable resistor. That was my first IC circuit. Pretty impressive for those of us who programmed with punch cards and made radios with solder and electron tubes.

      I didn't always get along too well with my father, but this was too much. I took it over to show it to him. I've never seen him look at something with such fascination before. It blew his mind. It was a father/son combination of wanting to one-up him and wanting to give him back what he gave me. It went back to the days when I would watch him at his workbench fixing a toaster or TV. I'll never forget it.

      I've heard musicians say that some of the happiest moments of their lives were playing music. Well, a lot of us could say the same thing about electronics.

      So I consider Forrest Mimms a mentor too. And he gave me something that I could give back to my father. I owe Mimms a debt of gratitude for that. He was one of the greatest science educators this country has ever seen.

      P.S. We won the war.

    5. Re:I consider Mims a mentor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "ultra-bigot" has nothing to do with it.

      If a guy writing about electronics, technological, factual things has such illogical beliefs it makes you wonder if his technical writing can be trusted.

      In that way it's better we did not know of his opinions outside electronics.

    6. Re:I consider Mims a mentor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I was a child, I did childhood things.
      When I grew up, I discovered Horowitz & Hill.

    7. Re:I consider Mims a mentor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Also about 1974 I was working for an organization that was developing some 8086 products

      You must be misremembering. The 8086 wasn't even in development in 1974.

  5. Wrote the book on electronics? by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    Please. Just.... please.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Wrote the book on electronics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Wrote the book on electronics? Please. Just.... please.

      Yep. Try Horowitz & Hill.

    2. Re:Wrote the book on electronics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL, it's an over-rated and outdated collection of half-assed anecdotes. Useless book, you're far better off getting the Malvino.

    3. Re:Wrote the book on electronics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Outdated? The 3rd Edition has just been released. And what does that have to do with its historical significance?

    4. Re:Wrote the book on electronics? by tibit · · Score: 1

      I agree. Some of the circuits don't even quite work as advertised...

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    5. Re:Wrote the book on electronics? by laurencetux · · Score: 1

      have you tried following the schematic EXACTLY?

      The books were HAND DRAWN by mimms himself after he built the designs multiple times.

      unless you are talking about tolerances a couple ticks below what the designs were setup for.

    6. Re:Wrote the book on electronics? by tibit · · Score: 1

      Oh, I'm not talking about Mims's stuff - his stuff does work, I went through all of his books as a kid and built every circuit there. I don't recall any mistakes in the schematics.

      I'm talking about the previous edition of Art of Electronics. It's all peachy until you go through it with a fine-toothed comb and build every circuit, and see what happens if you follow their advice. They are sometimes sloppy with their language, too.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  6. ARRL Publications by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you liked these types of books, ARRL publishes basically the same stuff under their name. I think RS used to even sell alot of the ARRL pubs.

    They're not all geared toward ham radio. They have a lot of books on basic electronics, robotics, etc.

  7. Don Lancaster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    For those who want to actually design circuits rather than copy them from a Mim's booklet, see Don Lancaster's CMOS Cookbook, Op-Amp Cookbook, etc.

    1. Re:Don Lancaster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His column in Radio Electronics was always fun and informative, especially when he veered off into his tirades, or how Postscript makes for a good general purpose programming language.

    2. Re:Don Lancaster by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 1

      For those who want to actually design circuits rather than copy them from a Mim's booklet, see Don Lancaster's CMOS Cookbook, Op-Amp Cookbook, etc.

      That's a fine idea, but they're not mutually exclusive. Education often works better if you start off simple and concrete. You can start fiddling around with Mims's designs and then take the training wheels off with more advanced works like Lancaster's.

      As an analogy, when you're trying to teach people about literature, you don't necessarily start with Finnegan's Wake. Depending on their previous experience, it might be more useful to give them Dick and Jane and Spot first.

    3. Re:Don Lancaster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As an analogy, when you're trying to teach people about literature, you don't necessarily start with Finnegan's Wake. Depending on their previous experience, it might be more useful to give them Dick and Jane and Spot first.

      Well to be honest nobody should be subjected to Finnegan's Wake to begin with.

    4. Re:Don Lancaster by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      What? The worlds English majors should never be allowed to forget that awful incoherent POS.

      Hang it around their necks like a millstone.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  8. I love his books by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I learned nearly all I know about electronics from his hand-written note books. Well Done!

  9. Back in the day...... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Not that I'm old, but I remember when Radio Shack not only sold lots of electronic parts and kits, they also sold Tandy leather working kits.

    Okay, maybe I am old. :(

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  10. Who... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

    I've been in electronics for almost 20 years and I have no idea who he is. I'm not trying to belittle anyone, it certainly looks like he has contributed quite a lot. But the guys who wrote "the text" on electronics are probably Sedra/Smith in Microelectronic Circuits (https://books.google.com/books?id=RcodQm6LaVEC), pretty much everyone I knew when learning used that book, I still have mine on the shelf behind me. The only other "the text" i could think of is Horowitz/Hill "The Art of Electronics". I think just about everything about transistors, amplifiers and circuits is at least touched on between those two books in deep, painful, gory mathematical detail.

    Radio shack books always were in the category of "I need a quick circuit that does and don't want to think about it". Useful for hobby work or quick prototype, but not terribly portable if you had to build a circuit that would be manufactured in the bazillions in some low cost region by trained monkeys, using parts you didn't control, shipped by drop-kick to a customer you'd never meet, interfaced with hardware you'd never dream of. I imagine they paid his bills, but hardly a scientific contribution.

    TL;DR summary bad, just RTFA if you care about what he does and what his actual contribution to science is.

    1. Re:Who... by Moof123 · · Score: 1

      Same here, been doing this crap as a profession for 17 years and never heard of this guy. I started after the Radio Shack era, and have mostly been a Digikey guy for all the jelly bean level tinkering. The real stuff is all on wafers.

    2. Re:Who... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Young'uns....

      Back when I was in Engineering school in the 80's, a LARGE perecentage of the EE students had a copy of his big, green paperback on their bookshelf, and usually a few of the mini-notebooks, too. I still have a copy somewhere, even though I don't do electronics/engineering for a living. I even had my high school electronics students buy one of his mini-notebooks to use as a reference book for the course.

      Basically, it's not that he's insignificant, you're too young (post-Internet) to have been properly exposed.

    3. Re:Who... by PPH · · Score: 1

      I recall Mimms' Radio Shack publications. Good stuff for beginners but I wasn't aware that he was anything more than an EE/Tech guy with a knack for putting together teaching stuff.

      I've heard of Bob Pease and read his stuff. I've also run across Winfield Hill and Don Lancaster on the Usenet s.e.d. group and gotten into a few threads with them in addition to having (some of) their books. Pease, Horowitz/Hill and Lancaster seemed to me to be the 'next step' beyond Mimms stuff. Not that Forrest is a dummy, but once I got going beyond basic stuff as a kid, he seemed to disapear.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  11. Mims in Hawaii by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Forrest travels to Hawaii every Summer I think and works up on Mauna Loa at an observatory, monitoring atmospheric content.

    I was up there helping a friend with an observatory when he said... "Forrest Mims is probably here, want to meet him?" I was like... "Seriously? Why would Forrest Mims be here?". Back in college (Electronics ) we talked about the Mims books many times and quite a few students had them. I also have one of his Radio Shack experimentation kits on my shelf.

    We went into the NOAA building and sure enough, there he was, he gave us a tour of the facility there and talked about his various inventions and activities. What a great guy. I think he writes for Make magazine now.

  12. Is hero worship common among engineers? by erice · · Score: 2

    As a practicing electrical engineer, I know just six names*:

    Thomas Edison
    Alexander Graham Bell
    Nikola Tesla
    Steve Wozniak
    Jay Miner
    John Mashey

    I don't mean to belittle Forrest Mimms or his contribution. It just never seemed important to know who did things if they were not people I was ever going to interact with.

    *Yes, I'm sure I could expand this if I spent time trying to come up with names and researching who wrote certain books but this is the full list that immediately comes to mind where I know just as immediately what they all did.

    1. Re:Is hero worship common among engineers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If hero worship and electronics is the goal, then let's not forget:

      - Shockley, Brattain, and Bardeen (invented the transistor): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor
      - Jack Kilby (invented the integrated circuit): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kilby

      And if you're in the analog semiconductor world:

      - Bob Pease (whom I've met and worked with): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Pease
      - Bob Widlar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar
      - Jim Williams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Williams_(analog_designer)

      These are my heros.

    2. Re:Is hero worship common among engineers? by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Presumably this was not an academic exercise in the history of electrical engineering or hobbyists. These people know who Forrest Mimms is because they have a shared experience of reading and using his books. Sort of like someone who knows who J.R.R. Tolkien is because they all read his books too.

      In other words, they did interact with his works, and that is why they know who he is. You apparently have not and so you don't.

    3. Re:Is hero worship common among engineers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to mention Woz is the last guy I want to interact with. Dude is a freakin space cadet that can't answer a question without tangenting into twelve unrelated topics never answering your question.

    4. Re:Is hero worship common among engineers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forget those pop culture icons. These are the real heroes of EE: Bob Widlar, Bob Pease, Jim Williams, Paul Brokaw, George Philbrick, James Early, Robert Noyce, Jack Kilby, etc.

      Bob Widlar - Inventor of numerous IC circuit elements such as widlar current source, widlar band gap, widlar output stage.
      Bob Pease - Analog guru, chief scientist at Nat Semi, amazing applications engineer
      Jim Williams - Amazing circuit designs, used all over
      Paul Brokaw - Inventor of one of the first bandgap circuits, providing stable voltage reference over temp with much less power than oven stabilized parts (usually zeners).
      George Philbrick - Pioneer of principles of negative feedback with analog computers and operations amplifiers.
      James Early - Tons of work with transistors, has Early effect named after him
      Robert Noyce/Jack Kilby - Members of fairchild and TI respectively, each credited with creating early/first ICs.

    5. Re:Is hero worship common among engineers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Volta
      Ampère
      Faraday
      Henry
      Ohm
      to name just a few more

    6. Re:Is hero worship common among engineers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just a quick note- when I was young and naive, I used to write to Engineers. Both Pease and Wayne Green are Aces with me. Green with adding a Crystal Oscillator to the EICO 753, ("Even if Crystal controlled, it will still drift..."), and Pease helped me with a particularly thorny problem with the RCA 40673 DG-MOSFET, (Use Germanium diodes to clamp the inputs.) Once, I wrote to Frank Oppenheimer... that was a wonderful Summer.
      Many years later, I was the one getting the letters, and then the emails.

      I once wrote up a little pamphlet explaining how Cyclotrons work. It was passed out for the Guided Tours at a National Lab. I pitched it towards Intelligent 12 year olds, the ones who ask the oddest questions, and included the bits of Trivia that Intelligent 12 year olds like. I moved on, and I found out that a decade later, it was _still_ being passed out. (That explained the odd emails that I occasionally received.)

      By the time Radio Shack finally came to our little podunk town, I had moved on, a little less young, and a little less naive. I just went up to their little Kiosk with the Allied catalog, and wrote out my order. (Occasionally, after enough whining, Dad would drive me into Berkeley, and Al Lasher's.)

      I never read a single book that Mr. Simms ever wrote. Right places at the Right times- that sort of thing.
      But my first introduction to Electronics was a 1914 edition of "The Boy Electrician", when I was Eight. It came with a box of Wonders, all gleaned from the old Manhattan Radio Row, by an Aunt who certainly did know better, for Christmas.

      I still have the WWII vintage Bakelite Aviator Headphones from that box, 2000 Ohms, with Pin Tips- With "Ten Cents" in faded blue lettering on the faded white label. They has always worked well with my Ten-Tec PM2B, with a now indestructible 40673 Front End.

    7. Re:Is hero worship common among engineers? by CharlieG · · Score: 1

      Me thinks you need to broaden your horizon a bit. Forest Mimms started a lot of people along the path with his very simple books.
      How about Horowitz and Hill - I'm QUITE sure you've heard of him. How about Schottky?
      Do the name Armstrong (Not Neal) mean anything?

      --
      -- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
    8. Re:Is hero worship common among engineers? by CharlieG · · Score: 1

      Ed Armstrong...

      --
      -- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
  13. Mims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's "Mims", not "Mimms".

  14. It is Mims, not Mimms by Beezlebub33 · · Score: 2

    Seriously, the summary is basically a link to an article, and you still get the name wrong?

    Mims is an odd guy, since he is (historically) important in his promotion of electronics education, but is also a creationist / IDer, which is odd for anyone with a brain.

    --
    The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
    1. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by lowen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Whether or not you believe in young-earth creationism or intelligent design has nothing to do with your aptitude in non-biology sciences and in engineering. I know a number of rather bright electronics and computer folk who are also YE creationists.

    2. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do they live with the cognitive dissonance?

    3. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not any more odd than taking some catholic priests idea that it all started with a "big bang" Of course big bang was actually a derisive term, but most scientists seem to like it anyway. These are things you can't prove. You think if you roll back time, you know. I suggest that you need to figure out why we need kludges like dark matter / energy to use our current models.

    4. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by khellendros1984 · · Score: 1

      Humans are pretty good about dealing with it. In this case, it's impossible to find evidence to contradict the statement "God created the universe in its current state 10 seconds ago." On the other hand, the behavior of an electronic circuit is immediately measurable and verifiable. Even people that try to behave perfectly rationally end up with dissonant thoughts coexisting in their minds.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    5. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better than you, apparently. :)

    6. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh it matters, it simply doesn't show with the dearth of talent available. It shows a very basic lack of scientific aptitude on casual observation. There are plenty theories of course all being equal (read infinite) suggesting some sort of creation, but there is nothing valid wrt young earth & intelligent design, nor is there any thing that puts creation by God as more relevant than ancient aliens, prehistoric robots, wizards, dragons, or whatever your pet philosophy happens to be. Whichever creation myth happens to be true it MUST adhere to the laws of the field of biology, once that criterion is met anything which simply fills in the gaps is nearly as valid as arguing whether a cloud looks more like Charles Darwin or whether it looks more like Santa Claus. We are free to judge him on these grounds, he is
      a) lazy, never having owned up to the civic responsibility and looked into it
      b) malicious, benefiting from religious position and lying
      c) foolish, believing the laws of science were designed by god so as to benefit electromagnetism while not simultaneously being applicable to biology

    7. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've noticed a lot of the creationists I've met and encountered online are engineers or technicians, but almost never scientists.

      I think there must be something about religion and technology that draws people inclined to black-and-white thinking... "this is the RIGHT way, no other."

    8. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by pcsnow · · Score: 1

      I think that Forest Mims can be honored for the number of people he inspired. There are many people who have religious views that I do not share but nonetheless they have helped many people. Perhaps, another man who is a Lutheran and an author of "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About" and a brilliant mathematician is Donald Knuth. I don't share their beliefs but I can still honor their work.

    9. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by hazeii · · Score: 1

      I'm old enough to recall the controversy over a creationist writing for Scientific American.

      --
      All your ghosts are just false positives.
    10. Re:It is Mims, not Mimms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's how Mims addressed the question in a previous Q&A:

      Re:Ask him about Darwin
      by femtobyte

      Why do you trust science when it comes to electronics, but not when it comes to biology?

      Mims: "I trusted biology in the 6th grade when our science book showed a photo of Piltdown Man and explained how he was the missing link between apes and people. This book persuaded me to accept evolution and to almost reject Christianity. However, while researching Piltdown Man at an Air Force Academy library when I was in the 11th grade, I learned that the 1912 discovery was actually one of science’s biggest hoaxes. Even though some scientists never accepted Piltdown as authentic, the scientific consensus was that it was real, and this admission was not formalized for 40 years. That was three years before my sixth grade science book was handed to us gullible students and presented as scientific fact. While working with scientists at the Air Force Weapons Lab on a variety of sophisticated experiments involving rhesus monkeys, I decided to look more into evolution. I began collecting fossils and have since accumulated a fair number of insects encapsulated in ancient amber. By my mid-twenties, I made the conscious decision to reject Darwinian evolution in favor of what is now called intelligent design. (I prefer Superintelligent Design. ID is a misnomer, since no one has proposed the details of exactly how life has been intelligently designed ex nihilo.) The bottom line for me was that Piltdown taught me to be skeptical of scientific paradigms. Of course, that’s what science in general once taught. But these days we are supposed to accept anything that’s claimed to be the product of 'scientific consensus.'

      "Back to your question, yes, I certainly trust science when it comes to electronics and biology. In fact, I’ve merged electronics and biology in a long term and ongoing study of daily photosynthetic radiation. I published a paper on 5-years of data using a homemade instrument in Photochemistry and Photobiology. Evolutionary science offers no viable explanation for the evolution of photosynthesis. I’ve also merged electronics and biology in an ongoing study of selective tannin deposition in the annual growth rings of various trees, especially two distinctive varieties of baldcypress (Taxodium distichum).

      "But I question paradigms and never trust pseudoscience, like the idea that life arose on its own through purely random processes. Occam’s razor recommends the simplest solution to a problem as being the best. Intentional design of living systems—the God hypothesis in my view, others have different ideas--is a far simpler explanation than random natural processes that have never been observed to create molecular motors and other absolutely indispensable elements of living cells. Back to electronics, it’s easy to conceive of an application, but implementing a circuit to implement the application is not a random process. I’ve built thousands of circuits, none of which were made by randomly wiring together components. The same applies to code. No one I know has ever randomly poked keys on a keyboard in an effort to create a new routine. In medicine, random events like this are called mutations, the vast majority of which are non-beneficial. When I designed the PIP processor from discrete TTL chips, it was necessary to design both the circuit and the microinstructions. PIP was built on our kitchen table, and was a bird’s nest of wires. Remove or replace a single wire or randomly change a microinstruction, and it would not work. But I was careful, and it worked. I published a book and 4 articles based on PIP, not one connection of which was random. In fact, as the designer of that rather difficult project, I might have been somewhat offended had someone suggested I relied on random processes for any aspect of its design a

  15. Another one integral to Radio Shack by kilodelta · · Score: 1

    Was old Gordon West, WB6NOA. Wouldn't have gotten into amateur radio were it not for his books.

  16. I'm so surprised to see that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...he isn't black...
    NOT.

  17. christianity CAPTCHA: capacity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    His wife probably forced him to come out as a creationist because her evangelical religious group threatened to kick her out if she didn't. He didn't want to lose his kids. Sorry for him, but science can't be blackmailed.

  18. What is there to celebrate ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He is not a woman.

  19. His books never worked for me by marcle · · Score: 2

    I've got 4 of his circuit cookbooks. There's precious little explanation of how the circuits work, why particular component values were chosen, etc. If you want to duplicate his circuits, fine, but the books sure don't teach anything about how to design your own. The hand drawn and lettered graphics are cool, but the information content is minimal.

  20. I owe Mims my life by maxrate · · Score: 1

    When I was a kid in the 80's, I was interested in electronics... it was Mims books and Radio Shack that made my interest bloom from a mere hobby to eventually a profession. I'm not genius, but because of Forrest Mims books and Radio Shack, I was doing a lot more than "building" a clock. Thank you Forrest, your books resonated with me a a young age. I was able to understand the content and experiment with some really interesting projects, learning a lot along the way. Arduino is the new electronics breadboard, but I am grateful I understand analog electronics as a result of my education from his books. Digital is 'simple' in comparison.

    1. Re: I owe Mims my life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...your books resonated with me at a young age..."

      Exactly this. I loved those books and I think they helped me a lot.

  21. Mims was fired by Scientific American by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    because he believed in creationism, not evolution.

    This kind of group think is now seen with the believers in global warming. Liberals are so intolerant of others.

    The magazine has gone to hell now that true believers run it. Just like Mozilla, after Brendan Eich was fired the browser is now going to pot.

    1. Re:Mims was fired by Scientific American by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How could he have been fired by them when he was never an employee? Please do your research. Oh, wait, people on your side of the issue are more into following dogma than doing research, sorry.

  22. Books Download by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now that RadioShack has gone under, is there any chance someone may publish PDFs of his books online?

    1. Re:Books Download by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try OpenLibrary.

  23. Can't even spell his name right... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

    I was feeling disappointed looking through all the comments at how many people were misspelling Forrest Mims' name. I mean, it's right there at the top of the page, for crying out loud.

    Oops, then I realized that it was misspelled there, too. Thanks, Slashdot editors. You are really doing a top-notch job.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.