Hi everyone. Electronics is something I'm interested in but have no clue where to begin learning. Do I go get one of those old radio shack kits and start doing the little projects they have? I'm pretty amazed at the things on here and would like to at least start learning some basics. Thanks for the help.
Well, if we are speaking about a beginner, if he forgets his decouplers, for example, he will have analog problems.
Have you tried to construct the noise source you describe?
I helped my son build one for his statistics class at college. Maybe I have a good recollection for trauma, but it took us about a month-and-a-half to squeeze 6dB out of the thing. Most of that time was waiting for the latest-and-greatest LNA to arrive in the mail. The 5722 does serve well in its intended application, determining NF for RF amps, due to the clever way RF wonks use it.
To wax even more pedantic, it is possible to mix linear and logic. Back before op amps were RRIO, we would put an unbuffered silicon-gate CMOS logic gate in the feedback path. This would give us the chance to switch off the output and to have a full-range swing at the output. The recipe for this is in the RCA CMOS Databook.
Purely combinatoric can be replaced by an LUT. Sequential logic may take plys and plys of LUTs to simulate, one for each state.
Analog considerations do come into play when one is trying to go really fast or mix logic families, or do things like wire-or. But, I get what you are saying. If you keep it combinatoric, you can dope it out with a coupla sheets of graph paper. But then the statement sorta devolves to 'simpler projects typically require less effort.' which is a rather bland statement.
What you said is true, in practice, for a beginner, and great advice. Throw a coupla flip/flops in and things can get hairy. It is amazing how complex in terms of output a P-Rnd gen can get with a few parts. Once I got into sequential logic, logic was no longer a refuge of simplicity. I study chaos a little bit. The onset of complexity seems, to me, to occur early and often in most systems. Like Chicago voting.
I have muddied the waters. I am going to hit the road before I succumb to the temptation to bloviate further on the topic of random number generators. It is simply true that using logic jelly-beans is a great introduction to the mechanics of electronics. I remember a point in time when they were all I designed with.
