How the book "Electronics step by step" found a new life

Hello, Habr!



Good news for those who followed the history of the reprint of Rudolf Svoreny's book "Electronics Step by Step" - the book is about to leave the printing house one of these days and fall into the hands of readers. Why did you have to wait so long for a new edition of the book? What has changed in the text? Are the illustrations the same? What about the circuits - as before, on MP39, with positive ground? Will there be an electronic version of the book? I will try to answer these and other questions below.



The history of the reprint of the book "Electronics Step by Step" began in 2015. Then, during the school year, on weekends, I taught classes in an electronics class for schoolchildren. I have always included this book by Rudolf Anatolyevich Svoren in the list of recommended literature for circle members. However, every year it became more and more difficult to obtain a paper version of the book - it gradually disappeared from libraries and became a rarity even among second-hand booksellers. On the other hand, electronic copies of the book could be found online without any problems. But another problem remained - a number of information in the book had already become irrelevant, electronic circuits for practical work also needed to be adapted to the available element base and the interests of today's schoolchildren. Actually, that's why I decided to find out - is it possible to try to reissue it,adding new information in the light of modern advances in electronics? 



I began to look for an opportunity to contact the author of the book. On the Internet, in a huge number, one could find the already mentioned links to download scanned copies of his books, but there was practically no information about him. And suddenly, in response to another query in a search engine, I find his contacts on Kinopoisk - “I, Rudolf Anatolyevich Svoren, age 87, radio engineer by education, journalist, writer, candidate of pedagogical sciences by profession, I live in Boston (USA), citizen Russia and the United States, retired. telephone 1-781 - *** - ****, selarophone 1-617 - *** - ****, e-mail *** ".



I called, made acquaintance, and told about my proposal to republish "Electronics step by step". In the course of the conversation, I am convinced that despite his advanced age, Rudolf Anatolyevich retained a clear mind and an excellent memory. But at first he met my idea with skepticism, they say, the book is outdated, much needs to be changed in it, and he is now busy with other things. At that time he was thinking about the problems of school education and tried to write the book "The most important thing is to understand the most important thing" - a fragment of this book was published in the magazine "Science and Life", No. 4, 2007. 



This is how he himself wrote about this work of his in correspondence with me: “The book“ The most important thing ... ”should be such that even without the help of a teacher, every student could easily read it. So far I've got a huge 1500-page manuscript. It will take a lot of time to complete it, edit it, divide it into ten or twelve small books and complete it with illustrations, I think five or six years. I did not postpone everything else and immediately start such a large-scale work at the right time, I began to prepare an experimental edition of six relatively small letters-books (50 pages of text and about the same number of pages of illustrations in each) with the general title "The world is arranged very simply." Some of these letters are already ready and I hope to complete this work in two years. Hopefullythat two years is enough to change and improve somewhat my very good last books about electricity and electronics. "



Over time (and we talked with Rudolf Anatolyevich a great many times by phone, Skype and e-mail), other interesting details became clear: it turned out that he recently wrote his new book - "Electricity step by step" (does not repeat "Electronics ...", devoted to the basics of electrical engineering), but it was released in a small edition by a charitable foundation, did not go on sale and practically did not reach the reader. Undoubtedly, this story upset Rudolf Anatolyevich and served as an additional factor holding back his work on the reprint of "Electronics ...". After all, no writer wants to write, as they say, on the table. After promising that I would agree to reprint two books already, I began to act.



Communication with various publishers began, unfortunately mostly fruitless.

At the same time, I created a Wikipedia page dedicated to R.A. I'll scavenge. Ilya Nemikhinnemilyapublished a series of articles with the memories of Rudolf Anatolyevich about how he went from a radio engineer to a writer. To make sure whether the modern reader really needs this book, we have announced the registration of those wishing to purchase a new edition of the book "Electronics step by step". There, for several years, there were about two thousand people - a good circulation for a technical book in modern times. It turned out to be important in this initiative that in the wake of these publications, the owner of the publishing house "DMK Press" Dmitry Movchan approached us, who offered to publish these books.



Unfortunately, the illness and then the death of Rudolf Anatolyevich stopped the process of reprinting. Only thanks to the support of the grandson of the writer - Alexander Beniaminov, it was possible to continue this work. At the end of 2018, the second edition of the book "Electricity step by step" was published, and in 2019 work began on the preparation for publication of a new edition and the most famous book by R. A. Svorenya - "Electronics step by step". 



It should be noted that in the same 2019, an interesting proposal was received from Alexey Fedoseev from the Association of participants in technology circles. On behalf of the Association, he wanted to buy from the writer's heirs the rights to the book "Electronics step by step" and to transfer the work into the public domain. Thereby, allowing everyone to distribute and use the book both in paper and electronic form, without restrictions. First of all - for educational purposes, for new educational projects and initiatives. I imagine it this way: the book could, for example, be perfectly supplemented by VR and AR technologies that allow you to look “inside” the transistor to see the processes at the border of the pn junction with your own eyes, etc. But, alas, it was not possible to reach an agreement on this issue in the course of lengthy negotiations.  



Therefore, the reprint of the book followed the traditional path - the publishing house “DMK Press” acquired the rights to publish the book in a certain edition and started prepress. There was a large amount of work to be done both for the artist - it was required to recreate all the wonderful drawings of the book, and for the editor. Let me remind you that Rudolf Anatolyevich himself was against the reprinted publication of the book and wanted to revise it based on modern realities. As an editor, I suggested invitingYRevich... Yuri Vsevolodovich Revich is the author of several popular books on electronics for beginners, including for children, and I hoped that he would be able, keeping the style and original author's manner of presenting the material, to update the information and practical schemes of the book.



During the preparation of this edition of the book, most of the book (up to chapter 12 inclusive), devoted to the general principles of the operation of electronic devices, has been almost intact. Editor's notes have been added to the original text to keep in touch with modern realities and terminology.



As Yuri Revich writes in the editor's introduction, he had to completely abandon the practical part in the chapters on radio broadcasting, television and sound recording. Not even because amateurs are currently practically not engaged in the design of such devices - it is much more significant that the very principles of operation of such devices have changed. Nevertheless, the theoretical foundations of these areas of electronics are still interesting, because modern approaches are based on them. These sections are combined into one chapter (chapter 13). For the same reason, chapters have been preserved on electronic musical instruments, automatic devices and even computers, which at that time were still just emerging from their cradle. The chapter on power supplies has also been preserved, supplemented by a separate section on integrated stabilizers.



Previous editions of the book were accompanied by the necessary reference data on the components of radio equipment, which were then simply called radio components. This section was then very important, because reference books on components at that time were in short supply and not available to everyone. In this edition, all such sections of the book with reference data are completely removed.



In addition, by popular demand, the illustrations in the book have changed the polarity of the power supply to the more familiar to the modern reader: power is supplied to the circuit from the positive pole of the source, and the "common wire" is connected to the negative. In accordance with this change, the polarity of connecting components (batteries, diodes, electrolytic capacitors, etc.) has been changed in the figures, and pnp transistors have been replaced with npn.



The artist's work took much more time than editing the text. Those who have signed up for the book reissue newsletter know that we announced the book's release late last year. But the book has only reached the printing house now.



I will write a few words about the practical schemes and constructions that were in the previous editions of the book. These sections of the book have undergone significant revision. All practical examples were created anew by Yuri Revich on a modern component base. The newly prepared practical examples, so as not to confuse them with the author's text, are highlighted in special sections at the end of the chapters, called the Workshop. If I had my way, I would publish a two-volume book, because, in my opinion, there could be more of these practical examples, and I would send all these electronic circuits to the second volume, because the volume of the book has already exceeded 500 pages. If there is a demand for such a completely practical volume of the book, then I think I can convince the publisher to release it.



Can I purchase an electronic version of the book? At the time of this writing, I knew that the agreement with the heirs implies the release of only a paper book. But the situation can change at any time, so I ask you to clarify the information directly with the "DMK Press" publishing house. My experience with the publishing house allows me to judge that they are quickly guided by the requests and wishes of their readers.



In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who supported the idea of ​​re-publishing the book, who wrote sincere reviews, sent their advice and recommendations for the new edition. I would also like to say a big thank you for your help and support to Ilya Nemikhin, Olga Basova, ArtemyDIHALTIslamov (project easyelectronics.ru), Vladimir Chudnov (editor-in-chief of Radio magazine), Alexander Beniaminov (grandson of RA Svorenya), Yuri Revich (book editor), Dmitry Movchan (publisher). It is thanks to all of you that this wonderful book has found a new life!



Update

You can download an introductory fragment, table of contents and buy the book on the website of the "DMK press" publishing house