Tech note: making your own V-I plots at home

Michał Zalewski took an unconventional approach with his new book, 'The Secret Life of Circuits': he actually measured the circuits he was illustrating. Per the Adafruit Blog, most electronics textbooks use diagrams that are either retraced from ancient sources or sketched from memory—essentially fake. Zalewski's book includes about two hundred ninety original illustrations, all based on real-world data: battery discharge curves, quartz crystal frequency response, signal behavior in coax cables, and vacuum tube characteristics. The result starkly contrasts with the idealized diagrams that have defined electronics education for decades.

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