I hate Digital Electronics

Hello ladies and Gentlemen,

Sitting in my room trying to decide whether I should give up on Digital electronics at this moment. I was always fascinated by analog electronics. I always enjoy learning new material about analog electronics or electric circuits. The problem is that the electronics program I am in, really loads me up with all this digital electronics nonsense that I absolutely hate learning about and even though I've come to understand most material, I won't be able to achieve a good grade this term due to my constant absences in the labs and lectures for digital electronics. My Exams are next week and I know I will do well on the analog electronics, electric circuits, and basically everything else except for digital. I only managed to do 2 labs out of 10 for digital electronics this semester and I missed my lab test today. Three weeks ago I wrote and passed my midterm test for digital electronics. I basically slacked off from there (on digital electronics only) and today I decided to finish off the labs at home but to my surprise, I forgot most of the material that I learned about digital electronics this semester. I have a tendency to forget things almost instantly if I am not interested in the subject. At this point I hate digital so much that I want to rip my textbook into tiny pieces and set it on fire. Oh by the way, the textbook is written in a horrible way, it utilizes language and sentence structures that will probably give lawyers a hard time understanding it. And most of the material the "authors" write in this book can be cut down in size by at least 4 times. Why do these "authors" write essays on something that can be explained in 2-3 simple sentences? If my textbook on digital electronics was written as good as my other textbooks on analog electronics and electric circuits by Floyd and Cook, perhaps I wouldn't be facing this problem. That’s my story for tonight; I would like to hear your comments on this issue. Are there any possible solutions for me to start enjoying digital as much as I enjoy analog?

Thanks for your time!

Come on ANALOGY don’t throw your digital stuff instantly you will require them in future for surely. Somehow study the digital ones & get some descent marks in the exam. Finish your studies first after that can make fun circuits………..also practical work gave me more understand than the book study.

By reading your previous posts you have some superb talent in electronics & can get understand very quickly.

I hate to read books that have written in too much sentences instead of two or three lines. Somehow I managed to pass the exams I don’t need 100 marks for the exams I just need to closer the cut off marks.

What are the subjects you hate in digital stuff & hard to understand?
& tell us what you very like to learn about analogy?

For me there is no much different between analog & digital stuff almost using the same principle in a different COMPACT manner.

hi Frosty,
I would like to make one observation on your post.

Please dont type a contiguous string of words, an occassional paragraph would make the text a lot more readable.
I have noticed in some other posts presented in the same way, they get minimal response and negative comments.

Gayan's is a good example of presentation, I'm not falling asleep halfway thru it

Are you blaming the authors of the technical books, or your lack of enthusiasm for the subject?
As I have said before, we take the learning process for granted, we expect, if we just read a book we are able to understand the topic.

IMO 'learning' is a subject in its self and it has to be learnt.
There are many techniques available to increase the success of your studies.

If you don't enjoy the subject, try some other hobby or career.

Eric

Like Gayan there, I'm kinda curious what aspects of digital electronics you hate or find hard in particular (do you specifically hate the things you find hard and vice-versa?), and for that matter, are there any parts of it you do like at all, or find easy?

Any parts you'd really like to be able to do, but get frustrated by? You seem pretty much at the end of your tether here. Maybe OTOH you find some aspects of digital electronics "too easy" compared to analogue, such that the whole thing is not as interesting to you and you can't focus on the bits that you do find hard? I've no idea, I'm just trying to have a guess.

Me, I think I find the digital stuff sorta appealling because I started out in programming (have done so most of my life, still do it), so there's a fair bit of overlap there. I haven't got too much experience with that side of things though, as I'm still mostly working on the analogue of things (though I do still find those parts interesting too).

Hope we can collectively help you out somehow before your digital exam. It sounds like other than that, you're pretty good at electronics in general, so it'd be terrible if this one subject spoilt things. Maybe you need to find a way to become more interested in the subject?

What you need to do is pass the current class.

Start by reviewing the material you have forgotten.

Then do the labs. After that you should be in good shape for the final.

It sounds like you have a bit of a chip on you shoulder regarding digital. Maybe a transfer to a power engineering or radio engineering would better suite you. You would still may have to learn some digital.

I'll second the motion of passing the class for the moment. Get through it first and then later on you can decide whether you like it or hate it.

I'd also like to add that even though you may not like it now, keep in mind that you are probably not very well exposed to how the real world uses & design with digital electronics. So you need to understand the priciples involved but it might not be fair to hate it just yet.

Example... Karnaugh maps, discrete logic gates, & flip flops state machine tables etc.. only the **SIMPLEST** of projects actually use any of this stuff. Any sufficiently complicated project these days is designed with microcontollers, mircoprocessors, DSP's, FPGA's or custom ASIC's - you won't find any of the simple stuff in these kinds of projects except for maybe some glue logic for a reset controller or something..

As an analog guy myself I would also like to tell you that many great designs would not be possible without the digital stuff. There are just too many things that digital does well that are needed. Somethings are impossible / impractical to do with analog so you will appreciate digital electronics. By the very definitions, a _strictly_ analog design cannot contain an A/D converter or a D/A conveter. The world is pretty boring without these I think..

You mean with digital electronics is switching power devices or such Microcontrollers, CPLDs, FPGA?
Might be you need to take some practice. If you know them, you'll like them.

When I was working with analog audio power amplifier, digital feel bad. Since digital have better efficiency, I just try it and its not that bad. Its more hopeful than I think about it before.

Few people are good in analog electronic it seems, so you're in a better position than those who suck at analog but are good at digital.

The other possibility is that you could be comparing basic circuit courses (which might be analog in your mind but aren't) against digital electronics courses which are a step-up, so of course they're going to be a bit harder at first. In my case, I didn't truly get to this stage until 3rd year university where the circuit courses were over and the "analog" and "digital" electronics courses started showing up, although I was taking "digital theory" courses first.

"Analog" is when you start getting into things like oscillators, amplifiers, and filters- and if you got these down, hot damn because it seems few people are very good at them. What's the word that comes to mind? Irreplaceable. Yeah, that's the one.

If you really hate digital so much, hold out for long enough, analog will eventually rear it's ugly head...because in the end it all becomes analog in the same way if you hold out long enough biology becomes chemistry, and chemistry becomes physics .

If you truly hate your textbook and you can manage get over your superficial hatred of digital electronics, might I recommend a book to you?

Bebop to the Boolean Boogie, An Unconventional Guide to Electronics
By Clive "Max" Maxfield
( https://www.maxmon.com/booginfo.htm )

It is a wonderfully thorough overview of digital electronics and just might change your mind about how you think of analog versus digital electronics.

You can read some telling editorial and customer reviews on the Amazon.com page for the second edition of this book. Link

Digital, along with analog, electronics will continue to be important well into the future and it is becoming exceedingly difficult to do either sufficiently without the other...

You wont get far without digital electronics...

Just stick with it, once you get it, you could build a binary clock to show off your smartz. Maybe get a couple extra points out of it!

NOTE: why does frosty have a ak47?

On the 1980's album "Dig It" (think, read Digital) from Klaus Schulze there is a piece called "Death of an Analogue".

Now 27 years later the "Analogue" is still there, think of all the ADC's and DAC's around.

So don't give up the analogue because of the digital part.
Please keep in mind that all starts with analogue signals that end up in digital systems.
Good analog designers will allways be required ... ...

Example... Karnaugh maps, discrete logic gates, & flip flops state machine tables etc.. only the **SIMPLEST** of projects actually use any of this stuff. Any sufficiently complicated project these days is designed with microcontollers, mircoprocessors, DSP's, FPGA's or custom ASIC's - you won't find any of the simple stuff in these kinds of projects except for maybe some glue logic for a reset controller or something..

Click to expand...

Quoted for ABSOLUTE truth...

Your digital book drones on because
a. there's a LOT to say about the subject, and
b. they may not know how to write concisely, and
c. they get paid by the word.

I too had to read a few books and manuals in classes where 'c.' seemed to be the principle driving force. For me, the digital stuff was of most interest, so here I am working on embedded control circuits. Analog, for me, is largely black magic. If this comes to you easily, and you finally get the hang of digital, count yourself as blessed.

Look at it this way: everything is analog. Digital is transistors wired to swing hard from one pre-defined level to another, forget the knee region and gain factor. They get wired together to form simple glue logic, registers of various configurations, and latches. Those basic blocks then get wired together to construct the larger logic devices, like PALs, FPGAs and processors. The Karnaugh maps and other buzzwords are merely tools to noodle out the steps needed to arrive at a logical conclusion by feeding some inputs to a sequence of ANDs, ORs, IF - THENs, etc.

As we speak, the industry is churning out devices that contain elements of both analog and digital. If you need to sample and manipulate analog signals (read: real world) and control processes and do data logging from the results, the capability can now be realized in one-chip solutions. DSPs come to mind. FPGAs now come with several blocks of analog and digital circuits sorrounding a Logic Unit.
Future technicians and engineers will spend more time perusing long, drawn out data sheets, errata, and user guides for these devices so they can program them to do the intended job. Better get used to mind numbing reading, unless you plan to repair guitar amplifiers for a living.

For what it's worth...
kenjj

Frosty_47 said:

I forgot most of the material that I learned about digital electronics this semester. I have a tendency to forget things almost instantly if I am not interested in the subject. At this point I hate digital so much that I want to rip my textbook into tiny pieces and set it on fire. Oh by the way, the textbook is written in a horrible way, it utilizes language and sentence structures that will probably give lawyers a hard time understanding it. And most of the material the "authors" write in this book can be cut down in size by at least 4 times. Why do these "authors" write essays on something that can be explained in 2-3 simple sentences? If my textbook on digital electronics was written as good as my other textbooks on analog electronics and electric circuits by Floyd and Cook, perhaps I wouldn't be facing this problem.
Thanks for your time!

Click to expand...

Not liking your class is not really an excuse for forgetting everything in it, especially when you, yourself, admit that you didn't pay attention in class, were absent the rest of the time, and didn't do the work. What do you expect really? You haven't said an ill-comments about the professor so I have to assume he's better than the book. So why would you take the hard road in a course you hate by going to the textbook and not just paying attention in class and doing the work right away? You don't forget the material if you do that.

I'm also wondering how you are still able to pass with only 2/10 labs and missing the lab exam. In every single one of my courses, if I get 100% on all exams, coursework, and all labs, except for one I didn't show up for, I fail.

I've found it's impossible to fail a course no matter how little you think you know (or how little you actually know) as long as you put in effort (even if it's futile and doesn't help at all) and please the karma gods...seriously, I've gotten C-in classes where I know almost everything (still less than everyone else I guess!), and A- in classes where I could have sworn I was the dumbest person in the class.

Also, you can't really give up digital electronics without giving up analog as well.

I find it quite funny that you hate digital because a colleague of mine hates analogue and loves digital electronics. I can see his point, digital electronics are often easier because there are less calculations and they are less susceptible to noise.

i don't have any preferences either way, I suppose I prefer analogue but digital is good too.

Personally, I prefer digital. Mainly because to me, analog is synonomous (sp?) with RF, so many non-idealities come into play. THen again, it's also the same in digital microelectronics. It just comes up a lot earlier in RF than in digital.

I have never done a thing with Digital as I have no clue how to do it. My current goal involving university and EE is that I have a year before I actually go into the EE major so I'm trying to get a big head start for myself by teaching myself a lot of this stuff.

I think you would enjoy Digital a lot more if you better understood it.

When I first got into computers, it seemed like 50% of the books I read talked a lot but didn’t say anything. I found that if a book had more than a few paragraphs on the history of computers, you should put it back. It won’t get any better.
I read one book on C language that was written the way you described. He used such awkward wording that I had to reread a lot of it to figure out what he was trying to say. This was not even technical stuff. I think he was showing off. Then he used a quadratic equation to explain structures. Any other books I can breeze right through them and understand completely.
Don’t let a bad author mess you up.
Get the book TecNoir recommended or anything by Forrest Mimms III.

dknguyen. A modern CPU runs well in excess of 1ghz between logic states. The standard AM radio included in every car built with a radio will still receive the good old 530khz to 1.71mhz AM band, after a certain point analog vs digital is a point of mind, modern construction of chip level semi conductors is actually more interested in the 'parasitic' or lossy RF components involved because they're so much of the current limitations on progressing digital electronics.

Barely passed my digital course last year. Had flying colours in my analog sections.

I'm working for a major OEM in telecomm equipment, both video and internet (both wired and wireless). 90% of the problems we have in cutting edge technology is still in the analog section (and usually the digital failures are just a case of reprogramming).

Spent my first year there working on the manufacturing end as a production technician on video equipment. The only non-programming digital failures were shorted lines or bad lots. Usually it was either a voltage problem or a filter line.

Moved to warranty a little over a month ago, working on wireless internet boards. Other than a few power amps and bad crystals, I've replaced 2 micros and changed countless filter lines, caps and attenuation pads.

What does this all mean? Even at this stage with electronics, most of the systems still rely on analog more than digital. You don't have to be an expert in digital to get somewhere, you just have to have a good enough working knowledge of it to understand it.