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Re:Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty by analog31 on Tuesday November 12, 2013 @12:06AM (#6715960)
Actually, building and playing with published Raspberry Pi or Arduino projects wouldn't be too bad a way to go. Most of the designs are open, and hobbyists tend not to overcomplicate things. See how many layers of the onion you can peel back, or what small changes you can make.

Choose a board and see how much mileage you can get out of it.

For the lowest level nuts and bolts, Horowitz and Hill's _Art of Electronics_ is still a classic. Going through the first few chapter exercises will get you thinking in terms of voltages and currents.

Re:Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty by voltagex_ on Tuesday November 12, 2013 @12:13AM (#6715988)
Heh, I seem to lose motivation after the first set of blinkenlights, or (this week) when I burnt out my one buzzer by misreading which resistor it needed.

I think I'll go back to a breadboard for a while - Art of Electronics looks like what I need right now.

Edit: Egads! $150AUD for that book

Re:Software Is Easy, Hardware Is Of Medium Difficulty by analog31 on Tuesday November 12, 2013 @06:55PM (#6722328)
Try for an older edition, second hand. The fundamentals haven't changed.

In fact, that brings up an idea for a way that hardware is sometimes easier than software. The laws of physics that constrain our designs don't go obsolete every 2 weeks.