How did you get started .....

[mackrackit]

This has become a very interesting topic. Education and how one got or gets started in computers and electronics.

I am on both sides of the fence when it comes to a formal education. I do not have one and I am chief designer for the company I work for. My son is using a lot of my money and his time going to school to “learn” what he already knows or can lean from reading the instructions that comes with the part. Computer Science / Information Technologies is the degree he is working on. Now days though he will need that magic paper to find work in this field.

I started playing with electricity when I was about nine. My father (who did not complete high school ) showed me how to take some soup cans, wire, varnish, a few magnets and a piece of dowel rod – say the magic words and presto my first motor!!!

In high school was building car radio amplifiers to make a few bucks. At this same time I was introduced to an Apple. Became discouraged with computers soon after. Why take hours to write a logarithm or inverse square program when I could work the problems out on paper in a few minutes. I will stick with hardware.

About ten years ago, after using relays, transistors, timers and other parts to make things move in sequence I bought my kid a Basic Stamp. Then I bought one for myself and started to study.

Today I am building industrial robots and am able to monitor them from hundreds of miles away!!! All with the dreaded computer.

My advice to the beginner would be to learn the hardware first. Make an LED blink with a transistor, capacitor, and resistor first. Play with a 555 timer, hex inverters, op amps and so on. Read yourself to sleep with a Micro Chip data sheet, read every thing you can find, put on some safety glasses and blow a few parts. Try to find out for yourself what does and does not work. If this is more than a hobby work on getting that “piece of paper”.

By the way Melanie, you have not told us how you got started.

[malc-c]

By the way Melanie, you have not told us how you got started.

Dave mate, your a bit late.. she deleted her post as she felt it gave too much personal info... (Visions of her changiing her Porche for a Farrari every 6 months and a different house for each month of the year )

[keithdoxey]

Dave mate, your a bit late.. she deleted her post as she felt it gave too much personal info... (Visions of her changiing her Porche for a Farrari every 6 months and a different house for each month of the year )

Well yes.... and no.

Mel's post started with her mention of getting a very good degree. It didnt indicate whether she had any interest or experience in Electronics/Programming prior to starting university. I wonder if thats what Dave was getting at.

I am glad I started this thread as it has revealed some interesting info about peoples history.

I also notice that none of the newbies seem to have contributed to this thread so far. Perhaps I ought to post the same thread 3 or 4 times in each forum so that I get an answer from them

[skimask]

I also notice that none of the newbies seem to have contributed to this thread so far. Perhaps I out to post the same thread 3 or 4 times in each forum so that I get an answer from them

That's one 'multi-thread' post that sounds like a good idea.

[mackrackit]

Well yes.... and no.

Mel's post started with her mention of getting a very good degree. It didnt indicate whether she had any interest or experience in Electronics/Programming prior to starting university. I wonder if thats what Dave was getting at.

Yes, that is right. Was it the money or is Melanie like the rest of us.

[grounded]

I guess it all started in the late 50’s nearly 60’s as a young boy
When all the other kids were playing ball and learning to read and write
I was figuring what made things work. Anything some one throwed away ended up in my bed room in pieces. I was always building things. And I became the goto guy in the neighborhood when the other kids stuff broke. They called me. After high school (barely made it out) and getting married. I began my life working in plant maintenance most of which has been motor controls using relay and PLC ladder logic. With my professional career winding down I still have that desire to learn and build things
And as my wife says when the kids and grand kids come he’s in the basement doing some of that mad scientist stuff. The PIC chip has help field that need. A few years ago I bought a PICKIT1 a hand full of 12f629/75 and 16f630/76. I tried the assemble stuff but it was just no fun and then I found PBP and this forum.. And have had a ball playing I just set around and dream up stuff to build with the PIC. I check this forum 2 to 3 times a day and have learned sometimes it best just to read what some one else asks and the answers they get, than ask myself. I never was any good in school and don’t have a lot of formal training I’m more of a learn on as need be bases. My hats off to all those people that can learn it from a book .BUT not all people are created equal. You have to learn it the way that’s best for you. I’m just a hobbyist and the things I program would be child’s play to the people here. But it impresses my wife and grand kids and that is enough for me. Something that I’ve started doing is to write code that could operate things @ work that we use a PLC for. Just for fun. And now when we walk up to one of our high dollar control panels
I enjoy saying I can control this with a $2.00 chip.
Thanks for everyone’s help as I learn. This is a good thread.
grounded

[Melanie]

I had a father who from an early age instilled into his children that they can do anything, be anything as long as they always try hard and be the best. Plain good was never good enough - you had to be the best - top of the class or else... He had a passion for storytelling at bedtime, of epic adventures, of history and pre-history, of heros and mathematicians, of scientists and engineers... he could tell such great stories, be it of Napoleon or Archimedes or Edison or Marie Curie and turn them all into breathtaking adventures... he always said that real engineers could take a scientists theory and turn it into reality, that engineers were people to look up to, that it's engineers that build civilisations...

In that vain, my earliest recollection was probably at the age of around eight, milling about an old secondhand bookstore with my father, and out of boredom I picked up a very old copy of 'Practical Wireless' which was much thumbed and tatty lying in a pile of old magazines in the corner. It made a change from Superman and DC Marvel comics and my father mistakenly thought I was interested in it and bought it. I suppose I felt guilty that my father had spent what little money he had on it, so it at least deserved to be looked through... and with a little help from my father and an old tramp that lived in the neighbourhood who always turned up on a Saturday afternoon (in the knowledge that Mom had a heart of gold and would feed anyone who knocked on her door) with a seemingly endless supply of ancient junk Radio's, TV's and all kinds of peculiar machines from which I could canibalise parts, I built the valve radio set from that magazine and the rest I suppose is history...

I ended up with a passion for starting with a blank piece of paper, and creating something new... it's a great feeling when something rolls out the door that came straight from your imagination...

And yes, it IS for the money too... very much so... my parents never had any, and what little they did have they invested it into putting food on the table and for their children. I'm sad that my parents will never see what happened to their little girl, but I owe my success, drive and determination to them. I miss you Mom & Dad.

[dragons_fire]

I AM A Newbie, so here is a post from me about how i got started...

first off, i should say that im only 22 now, so i dont have that much background in electronics, but ask me again in 50 years and i can tell you all about it..

back when i was in grade 7, my father was a signals Warrant Officer in the military and he had some interest in small electronics projects. We had to make a math game of some sort, so i decided i wanted to make something with electronics. he helped a bit with the design, but i did all the soldering (and math) myself.. it had math problems down one side, with a button beside each, and answers on the other side and they had buttons beside them too. so when someone would press the buttons beside a question, and the right answer, a LED at the top would light up...

although i do see a need for university trained people in our society, i went to college, and now i have a great job working for the phone company here. everything i learned in college, has nothing to do with my job, other than that i learned how to learn.. and just for the record, the reason i was hired, is because of my interest in hobby robotics..

after that, i started taking apart lots of small toys and my dads stuff (he wasnt too happy about that) but i learned a lot by figuring out how stuff worked.. i then took a basic electronics course in high school, and a design program that included an electronics course in post secondary. (the post secondary course was more basic than the high school one).

i started with PICs about 2 years ago, and have learned lots by lookin on here, and searching the net, i have also bought a couple books about PICs. the first thing i did with a PIC was a LED chaser (from the front of nightrider, even though im too young to know what knightrider is!!!). now i have built displays for my truck that display different temps, rpms, fuel level, speed and a couplle other things,.. i find it fun just trying to figure out different ways to do things...

although i do see a need for university trained people in our society, i went to college, and now i have a great job working for the phone company here. everything i learned in college, has nothing to do with my job, other than that i learned how to learn.. and just for the record, the reason i was hired, is because of my interest in hobby robotics..

so thanks to all those non-newbies that have guided me in my adventures!!!