How did you get started .....

[keithdoxey]

Just wondering how most people here got started in Electronics/Programming.

It is very apparent from some recent posts that some newbies seem keen to use PICs for all manner of tasks but dont seem to have a basic grasp of either electronics or writing programs.

We have seen large chunks of code posted that have just been copied from somewhere else on the internet and there seems to be an assumption that doing that will magically alter the code so that is will work in the new application.

In my case, my interest in Electronics predates my interest in any form of programming by at least 10 years as there wasnt anything that required programming when I started !!!

I used to buy loads of electronics magazines every month....

Everyday Electronics
Practical Electronics
Electronics Today International
(when they used to be 3 separate publications!)
Electronics and Music Maker
Electronics (The Maplin Magazine)
Elektor

.... yet in over 30 years and hundreds of magazines I dont think I have built more than 2 projects as published and even they were subsequently "enhanced". Instead I used the articles as a basis for what I needed and learnt how to adapt the circuit to achieve what I wanted.

My first venture into programming was BBC Basic....

10 For x = 1 to 10
20 Print x
30 Next x

...and then gradually working through the commands in the user manual. Although I did a small amount of PIC programming in Assembler I much prefer the ease with which tasks can be achieved in PicBasicPro.

Again I learnt VB, ASP, PHP, Javascript, PBP by first looking at examples and tweaking them slightly to achieve different things before moving on to writing code from scratch.

I guess that many of the regular problem solvers on the forum have probably followed a similar course for the development of their skills but wonder why newcomers seem reluctant to try things for themselves.

As far as I am aware, no one has yet posted asking for code to control a Nuclear Reactor so there is very little to lose from experimentation. Its a racing certainty that the code will crash many times in the beginning but that is how you learn what works and what doesnt.

Realistically the worst that could potentially happen is that the magic smoke could escape from some components but then most of use have done that many times already.

So, how did everyone else get started ?????

[mister_e]

I started buy looking at what my father did. Thereafter he learned me Ohm law and resistors color charts (when i had 6-7 years old). He buyed me a Radio Shack 200-in-one kit. I blow almost everything in, then he learned me how to change the parts on and how to test them.

1982-3-4,

1. learning how to program in Basic on Texas instruments TI99/4A, Vic20, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, TRS-80, TANDY1000.
2. Build my first DJ Mixer (kind of) +Power amp in a wood enclosure mostly by using Junk-Yard parts
3. Refurbishing old Turn-Table to have 2 to begin mixing
4. build my first 110-Vac light chaser + audio trigger with auto-volume control + 3 different pattern with 74xxx TTLs + MOC 3010 + TIC 246 Triacs
5. Build the next version of that chaser but using the Printer PORT of my VIC-20 and the joystick port for the audio trigger

[*]GWBasic and DOS on 8086/8088[*]CPM on Z80 based system

1990-1994

1. learn VisualBasic, C++, C, Visual C, Cobol, Pascal, Fortran
2. Build my first lab PSU (which i still have) named IL3U (instrument lab 3 utility) +12,+5,-5,-12,+Variable, -Variable, + Tone generator (Square, Triangle, Sine) TTL out, Variable Offset, Variable gain, -20Db switch... around that crappy ICL8038 + audio amp
3. Electronic college... Telecom
4. university... which i gave up because it was pointless and annoying to me to learn those unusefull and brain filling Maths+Trigs+Chem+etc etc etc

Later i work as

1. car accessories installer (amp, Car starter, alarm, radio etc etc etc).
2. car audio repair and car radio decoding.
3. Chief tech for rental department for Solotech here in Montreal. Pro-Audio
4. Start my own on-the road car radio repair/decode + cluster + PCM + BCM + etc etc etc
5. Introduce electronic Design/mod
6. EOT

And i skipped many things none electronic related.

[ronsimpson]

How did I start out or how to start out? This is for the Newbies on the forum.

Why am I qualified to speak on how to start out. I graduated from the school-of-hard-knocks. I am now working on an advanced degree from the same place. I built my first computing machine in the third grade in 1967. From my 18 year I am paid well to design electronics. I tough myself this industry.
I started out with Radio Electronics and Popular Electronics magazines along with all the Ham Radio magazines. Later Byte magazine came out. I built a project from the magazines every month, then modified it. Those magazines are gone and Ham Radio is nothing now. Get these magazines below. Read every article. Search the web. Buy kits! Take night classes. Read data sheets. Buy books. Experiment, try again, build, build, build and never give up. Use every forum. Ask questions. Get a development board and program it. Don’t let an old goat with 10 or 20 years experience put you down. Get up and find another way.

What drives the old goats creasy is then Newbies do not read the manual. Many Newbies want the answer given to them when a little digging will solve the problem.

Now for the old goats like me; think back to when some one said to you “this is a resistor”, “that is an OR gate” or “For-next-loop”. I have been passing out too much help on the forums. From now on I will try to give out the tools to find answers, and less answers. Lets all take a Newbie under our wing in memory of those who helped us.
Very simple. http://www.nutsvolts.com/
Very complex. http://www.circuitcellar.com
Simple. http://www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/

[malc-c]

I've always been interested in how things worked and even at a young age of around 10 I was playing with lousdspeakers and wiring up extra speakers to my parents gramaphone !

I left school in '78 and went into an electronics apprenticeship - In 1981 I purchased my first computer, a Sinclair ZX81 (think it was sold under the Texas brand in the US) in kit form... I learnt BASIC (well Sinclairs version to start with) by spending hours typing in the code for games and applications printed in magazines, and then working out how to debug the problem when it wouldn't work due to a typo in the magazine !

I came back into electronics around 5 years ago when I wanted some flashing LEDs for a model helicopter, and ended up discovering the wonderful world of PICs. Put off by not being able to understand or follow Assembly, I opted for programming in BASIC and ended up with PBP as it follows and resembles the BASIC programming language I used with computers.

I still class myself as a novice in PIC programming, and I do agree with the comments about newbies, which is why I only post a plea for help after I've already tried to write my own code and have breadboarded the hardware.. I found that this has earnt me some respect from the seasoned users of PBP and have forged some good frendship from this forum by doing so. Having said that, often pointing a newbie to the datasheet is a waste of time as I still find them printed in a language I don't understand... it could be Klingon for all i care !!

[skimask]

My parents messed up and bought me a Radio Shack 150-in-1 kit back in 5th grade (1979). Played with that for a couple of years, along with tearing other stuff apart to make other stuff not in the book...of course along the way, I didn't know that I didn't know what I was doing.
Before that I was always drawing stuff out on paper...go-karts, airplanes, trying to build soap-box-derby cars. No money at the time, too young to care about the future, etc.

Summer of '81, relatives bought me a Tandy MC-10 (6803 CPU if I remember right). Learned how to program that, tried to run other stuff off the cassette port motor relay (not knowing that I could burned out the board on the MC-10).

Got to 7th grade and discovered the Apple II, II+, IIe series of computers. Learned how to program them... walked around school with these huge ARRL books under my arm trying to learn electronics...but again, no money to buy stuff and play around. Then I discovered the Tandy Color Computer II. Learned to program that in Basic as well as assembly (anyone remember EDTASM+?). Tried to build an extender card to run some of the signals out of it so I could play around. Burned up that system board. Got another CoCo2, max'd it out on options (including the whole DS9 (?) operating system,etc.) and decided since I burned up the previous board, I'd concentrate on programming. Stayed with both Apple and CoCo basic and assembly until I graduated high school. Joined the military, got trained in aircraft avionics, although I didn't learn anything in tech school because I had already read all about it in books during the previous 6 or so years.
Got stuck in a rut of drawing stuff on paper, wishing, dreaming, etc, until '98. I finally had 'spending money' and I finally bought my first 'real' PC (Windows 98/98SE/ME, etc, Celeron 300->450, etc. with all of the goodies at the time, 2x Voodoo2 cards SLI'd, huge 40GB drives, 20x CD, etc).
And about 3 months after spending that $3000 on the latest and greatest PC stuff, I bought a Warp13a programmer, a few PICs, PicBasicPro, some breadboarding supplies, generic pieces/parts, etc. and started on my MP3 player project. I jumped right in, bought all of the parts to build the player with the intent on building a player and only a player. I didn't do the blinky light thing specifically...well, I did, but it was more of a consequence of not being able to get anything to work and figuring out that I had to start slow and work my way up.
Which is exactly what I tell the nubs' that show up here wondering why their latest combination toaster/oven/converter/spacecraft/player/television doesn't want to work and they've only been into PICs and PBP (or electronics) for the last 15 minutes.

Start off slow, blink a light, show your name on an LCD, push a button, a light comes on, read an A/D converter connected to a pot, etc.etc. Jumping in wastes money (about $700 in my case!).

That's my sad sad story...
Oh, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't have a single piece of paper in a nice frame on my wall... College-shmollege, what a waste of money... (and I'm sure there's a lot of people in this hobby and on this forum that don't have a degree from the University of Anywhere...rock on!)

[T.Jackson]

Oh, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't have a single piece of paper in a nice frame on my wall... College-shmollege, what a waste of money... (and I'm sure there's a lot of people in this hobby and on this forum that don't have a degree from the University of Anywhere...rock on!)

If we all thought like that there would be no professionals in the World. No Doctors, no competent engineers, everything all nice and "slap happy". Great World that would be. The scariest part, you seem quite proud about not having a formal qualification, and you're even encouraging it.