An Analog Life -- A Video about Jim Williams

Sometimes the YouTube algorithm gets it right.  This morning it sent me the above video from the Computer History Museum about Jim Williams. The video is 13 years-old, but that says something about the enduring impact that Jim Williams had.  I especially liked the references to the need for understanding of analog circuits.  As many have noted, Jim was very good at explaining this stuff. 

Jim Williams -- Analog Man -- Book Review: "Analog Circuit Design -- Art, Science, and Personalities"

 

Jim Williams at his bench.  Note the mess. 

The Bob Pease book that KD4EBM gave me led me to the Jim Willams book entitled Analog Circuit Design -- Art, Science, and Personalities.  I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, but I can already tell that it is great.  Get this book.   Make room on your shelf.   

Jim was the editor, and it is a collection of contibutions made by a many different analog luminaries.  Curiously, none of the bios show that there are any hams among them (but the articles of many of them seem to hint at ham radio backgrounds).  MIT shows up a lot in the bios.  Jim notes in the very first line of the preface that "This is a weird book."   He talks about how it came together -- he met with the contributors and each of them pledged NOT to consult with the others about what they would write.  Jim notes that the result is "a somewhat discordant book," that "Hopefully would lend courage to someone seeking to do analog work." " The single greatest asset a designer has is self knowledge."  "Take what you like, cook it any way you want to, and leave the rest."  Indeed. 

I found that Jim's own contributions were among those that I liked the most. He writes about "analoggery" and "digital fakery"  but then acknowledges that this is a "good natured" controversy.  He notes that "no true home is complete without a lab" (a shack?) and that "no lab is complete without an HP series 200 oscillator."  His bio reveals that he lived in California with his family and "14 Tektronix oscilloscopes."   In a chapter entitled "Should Ohm's Law be Repealed?" Jim describes the very early influence of a neighbor, Dr. Stearn,  who owned a Tek 535.  It allowed them to see into circuits:  "You knew the excitement Leeuwenhoek felt when he looked in his microscope."  But that was not always enough:  Jim tells how Stearn once successfully troubleshot one of Jim circuits simply by running moistened fingers over circuit while watching the scope. 

Tom Hornak also really struck a chord with me. He writes of things that happened in the year "10 BT" (Before Transistors).  He talks about how he and a childhood friend had trouble understanding the differences between voltage and current.  "We found someone who knew the right answer, but he did not help us too much. Instead of using a simple analog such as a phasor diagram, he started to talk sine and cosine. We accused him of not knowing the answer either, and covering up his ignorance my muttering mumbo-jumbo."  Tom explaines:  "I know that trying to 'understand electricity' early in life had a lasting benefit to me. I got used to 'seeing electricity' in analogs and I am still seeing it that way. I believe every electronic circuit designer could benefit from thinking in analogs, and it is never too late to start. This belief made me write this chapter."  

Barrie Gilbert -- the man credited with inventing the Gilbert Cell (the heart of the NE602) -- has a chapter in the book.  He writes of circuits "laid out Manhattan-style" and "built on softwood bases." He hombrewed a very early TV receiver. He tested AF amplifiers "by placing a finger on the grid of the first tube."  (We recommended something similar with the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion Receiver, but some builders seemed not to believe that this would work!)    

It is undoubtedly a tragedy that we lost both Jim Willams and Bob Pease in June 2011. Jim died of a stroke at age 63; Bob died of a possible heart attack or stroke while driving home from Jim's memorial service. But here we are in 2025 still talking about their work and their books. In a certain sense they live on through their writing.  This is a lesson and an inspiration for those of us who sometimes get a bit down by the vagaries of AI and the algorithms:  We never know when -- perhaps long after we are gone -- someone might come across something we have written and find inspiration there.  

Three cheers for Jim and Bob.   

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2025/10/troubleshooting-analog-circuits-by-bob.html

https://www.jameco.com/Jameco/workshop/inthenews/pease.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqCC_QLhohtE3--OhGRLuQ0kQDyAq0rDsRhkdQDeIeZmGZs7nvN

https://www.edn.com/analog-engineering-legend-bob-pease-killed-in-car-crash/

"Troubleshooting Analog Circuits" by Bob Pease

 

I used to say that at a hamfest, you should get three things:  1) some parts 2) a tool, and 3)  a book.  I thought I had maxed out on books.  Until Bob KD4EBM sent me this one.  I made room for it. 

Just consider some of the chapter headings and sub-headings:

 

-- The Philosphy of Troubleshooting. 

-- Quashing Spurious Oscillations

-- Oscillations Crop up

-- Roundup of "Floobydust:" Loose ends that don't fit elsewhere

-- Real circuits and real problems

-- Experts have no monopoly on good advice

-- Learn to recognize clues 

-- When computers replace troubleshooters, Look Out

-- Understanding diodes and their problems

-- Identifying and avoiding transistor problems

Sadly Bob died in 2011. But his good advice and wisdom lives on: 

https://www.qsl.net/n9zia/pease/index.html

Get this book:  https://www.amazon.com/Troubleshooting-Analog-Circuits-Design-Engineers/dp/0750694998

Why Should We Build Analog Gear When the World has Gone Digital?

Our friend Todd (Vasily) had recently been thinking about this on his excellent Popcorn Electronics blog: 

https://qrp-popcorn.blogspot.com/

There are many answers to this question.  Todd's post made me think about a message from Farhan VU2ESE on this same subject. See:  https://www.vu2ese.com/index.php/2022/08/04/daylight-an-all-analog-radio/ My comment and a quote from Farhan appears below: 

Hello Todd!  I have been thinking about the same things.  As you know there is a lot of magic in using gear that you have built yourself.  And it is still possible to do this.  But I think the builder has to make some choices:  Building it yourself might -- as you say -- require you to move away from the perfection, bells and whistles of the modern ICOM 7300 style rigs while embracing the simple functioning of analog rigs.  Farhan was thinking of this three years ago: 

"So here we are, talking analog radios in 2022.  Here is the memo : The analog never died. The world is analog all the way, until you descend into Quantum madness. The antennas are analog, Maxwell died a content, analog man. Our radios, ultimately, are analog machines and we are all analog beasts too. Amateur Radio technology has evolved into the digital domain. However,  it has only made it easier for us to do analog with computers to simulate and print our circuits.  So, it’s time to bid good bye to our Arduinos and Raspberry Pis and build an Analog Radio for ourselves. So let’s see what we can achieve in hindsight, a return to our native land and a rethink of our approaches. The radio is called Daylight Again, a nod to being back at the FDIM in 2022 after a gap of two years. It is named after the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s song that had been humming all the time while put this radio together, emerging after 2 years of lockdown.  This radio that took two days to come together, no actually two years! That’s: parts of it got built and stowed away, thoughts were struck in the shower, questions popped up during early morning cycle rides and notes and circuits were scribbled in the notebook.  I must take the first of many diversion here: I hope you all maintain a notebook. Write down the date and whatever you thought or did on the bench and the result. Nothing is trivial enough to leave out. Wisdom comes to those who write notes.  I started to build this on Saturday the 14th May and I checked into the local SSB net on Monday morning, the 16th May 2022. Back to the radio.  What can an analog radio do that will appeal to us homebrewers?"

More to follow.  73  Bill  Hi7/N2CQR