This article is part of Electronic Design's 70th Anniversary series.
What you’ll learn:
- The third leg of an engineering career.
- How to keep up-to-date.
- What you may be missing.
I remember the first time I discovered Electronic Design magazine. I was a young engineer right out of college working for a government sub-contractor in Houston. My job was supporting the company’s telemetry equipment, mostly out at the White Sands Missile range.
One afternoon, I was exploring my new office space and found a stack of ED magazines on a bookshelf. They were an odd size, not the usual 8-1/2- × 11-in. format. These were square, more like like 11 × 11 inc. I spent the afternoon going through them. Wow, I discovered a treasure trove of information!
The magazines were loaded with lots of good articles about how to design stuff. And this wasn’t what they taught us in school. Lots of theory and math, but little practical how-to design.
I remember another young engineer saying, “Lou I need to design a small amplifier and I know how to do that, but what transistor do I use?” (one more thing we did not learn in school). Reading current magazines, you see lots of circuits and after a while, you often realize that particular types of transistors or ICs are used again and again. So, you reach for one of those, or you ask your parts manager what the company has on hand.
Earlier Days of Electronic Design Magazine
Anyway, the ED issues covered the latest industry news and included a very popular feature called Ideas for Design (IFD). Readers sent in their clever circuits using simple common parts. There weren’t many ICs available back then, so these circuits were great for getting a design going when you don’t know where to start.
I also remember there were lots of ads. I suddenly knew where to find the parts I needed to make my designs. I wonder if the ads are actually the most important part of the magazine. How else do you know where to get a particular capacitor, transistor, or test instrument?
Oh yes, remember those postage-paid insert cards that were bound into every issue? “Bingo” cards. You drew a circle around the number corresponding to advertisers you wished to receive information from. And voilà, in a few weeks you got your info in the mail or from your local sales rep. Another part of learning engineering.
The rep was the salesperson who brought you the latest catalogs, datasheets, app notes, or a free sample of the part. Some reps even left you with a handshake and your hand smelling of men’s cologne that was popular back in those days.
Other inserts to the magazine asked you to subscribe to the magazine. And, of course, I did. After all, it was free. How good could this be? One magazine providing all of these resources free of charge.
Staying the Course in Print and Electronically
As it turns out, Electronic Design continues to provide all or part of that free. No more bingo cards; you have to go to the internet to get most of the content today. Luckily, ED is one of the few industry magazines to still offer a printed version. To this day, many readers prefer print.
The magazine is one of the best resources for an engineer. It provides a link to almost everything you need to do your job. It forms the third leg of an engineer’s education and capability: college theory and math, on the job experience, and the magazine’s link to a dazzling array of design data, news, ads, and inspiration. The magazine is the way you keep up-to-date with the latest technology, parts, and the competition. ED even supports vendor webinars.
Still, many engineers don’t subscribe to such publications because they say that everything they need to know can be found on the internet. Of course….
I wish that all EE students could get a subscription to Electronic Design. Such publications fill in the gaps that exist in a college education. No one has figured out how to get a free magazine to a college student.
Electronic Design helped my career greatly and I say thanks for the practical education that I needed at the time.
Read more articles in Electronic Design's 70th Anniversary series.