Tutorial Re: Schematics Archive

[Gene Zumchak]

John,

    There's not much incentive for writing tutorials.  About a month ago I wrote
a tutorial on OTA's.  It took a few hours of my time.  It was posted on two or
three websites, but I got almost no feedback.  Either people didn't read them, or
they read them and had no comments.  I have a short tutorial on op amps that I
wrote for a class a few years ago.  It could use some work to improve it but I
don't have the time.  Probably it would still be useful as is.  All the talk
about VCO's lately tickles me to write a tutorial on VCOs, why they have/need
exponential front ends, various methods used to get the exponential, the
plus/minues of current controlled and voltage controlled oscillator mechanisms,
sawtooth vs triangle, etc.  But based on my experience with the OTA it probably
isn't worth the trouble.  It does seem, however, that people would have more
success with their DIY projects if they had a better understanding of what they
were doing.

Gene Z.



JWBarlow at aol.com wrote:

> I strongly agree with Tony's comments below regarding the need for good
> tutorial information to be made available. I posed the question to some other
> people on the list (when we were buying our copies of The Art of Electronics
> last month) about seeing if some of the more advanced among listers would be
> interested in making a synth/audio related online tutorial that roughly
> paralleled The Art of E. There did seem to be some interest then, and from my
> own experience I can say I've long been looking for that ONE book (165 pgs.
> max. I hope) that would take me from novice to Buchla type modules in three
> months -- it seems like there are posts similar to this every couple of
> months. A good tutorial site might at once dispel this type of thought, while
> giving useful information at beginning to intermediate skill levels.
>
> BTW, The Art of E. is laid out in such a way that it could be very conducive
> to a strictly audio related tutorial: Chap 1 deals with basic Rs, Cs, and Is
> (so one could use examples of PSUs, passive tone controls, mics, and guitar
> PUs, etc.). Chap 2 deals with transistors (examples of exponential
> converters, simple fuzz boxes, etc.). Chap 3 deals with... er, eh, OK I'm
> still on chap 2, but you get the idea.
>
> John B.
>
> In a message dated 4/12/99 9:37:48 AM, clark at andrews.edu writes:
>
> >   I would second this.  After all, there are many people with a "mass
> >of
> >schematics", me included.  But you are right, most sites do not aim
> >themselves towards the novice/newbie DIY'er.  I think it would be great
> >for more "tutorials" to be added to the net, in fact I have a section of
> >my site set up for this purpose.  But it doesn't matter where the
> >information is located, just as long as it is accessible.
> >