very neat classic computer book comparison

[Tony Duell]

> 
> Someone sent me this link...
> 
> http://davidguy.brinkster.net/computer/
> 
> It is an online scan of the book "How it works - the computer", circa 1971. 

Eeek!... I remeber that book when it was current. As you've probably 
gathered, the 'ladybird books' were aimed at children, and I think I had 
all the 'How It Works' series. 

[The one I particularly _disliked_ was 'How It Works -- The Telephone'. I 
could not understand that book. I couldn't understand it when I re-read 
it several years later. I finally understood it when I bought a copy of 
'Telephony' about 10 years ago. 'Telephony' is a book that was used by 
telephone engineers in the UK, and contains complete schematics for 
telephone exchanges, etc). I realised why I couldn't understand the 
simpler books, far too much had been left out, so what remained made no 
sense. There is a danger in oversimplifying things.

Another Ladybird book was called 'Making a Transistor Radio'. It covered 
building a crystal sed, adding a single transistor audio amplifier, then 
a second stage and a speaker, and finally replacing the detector with a 
regenerative stage. The final set was a 3-transistor AM receiver using a 
couple of OC71s and an OC45. I think just about every UK electronics 
enthusiast built that at one time or another.

-tony