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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.

53 of 105 comments (clear)

  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: 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."

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    5. 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...
    6. 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.

    7. 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.

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

      Being nice to stupid just allows it to propagate.

    9. 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
  2. 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 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.

    4. 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!
    5. 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.

    6. 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.

    7. 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.

    8. 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.
    9. Re:RadioShack by cnaumann · · Score: 1

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

    10. 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."

    11. 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

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

      Digi-Key is always hiring.

    13. 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.

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

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

  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 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.

    3. 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. 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 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.
    2. 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.

    3. 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. 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 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.

    2. 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'
  7. 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...
  8. 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 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.
  9. 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 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.

    2. 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
    3. 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
  10. 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 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.
    3. 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.

    4. 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.
  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. 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.