There have of course been many advances in electronics since the preparation of the first edition and this has been a welcome opportunity to bring the text up to date. The decade leap is reflected particularly in the two new chapters (13 and 14) on digital techniques and computers. Here I have aimed to present the important relationship of the microcomputer chip to other circuits, both digital and analogue, in a digestible form with plenty of experiments.

In the remainder of the book, many detailed changes have updated it without destroying the logical structure which has by now become familiar to students on many college and university courses. The approach throughout remains a practical one and is still based on my experience of teaching electronics in the Department of Pure and Applied Physics at UMIST. In recent years my work has been in industrial electronic design, further experience which has helped me to keep the text relevant to real applications.

In acknowledging gratefully the help I have received in preparing this second edition, I must first thank those readers of the first edition who wrote in with encouraging suggestions and amendments. Thank you too to my eldest son Christopher for his help in devising and testing the computer-based experiments. Alan Jubb was a great help in checking the manuscript of the new material.

Finally thank you again to my wife Sylvia not only for her typing skill but also for her encouragement and patience.