Most efficient way to obtain a paper analog design book from PDF (see URL)

[Martin C.]

There are electronics books out there that I'd like to print but I'm
trying to figure out what's the most efficient way to do so.

For example, here's a 250-page book titled "Designing Analog Chips" by
Hans Camenzind, located at: http://www.designinganalogchips.com

Is there an efficient printing mechanism that you can tell me about?

For example, I only have a B&W laser printer.

The book is 250 pages (so that's 125 sheets of paper).
At Costco, I can buy 1,000 sheets of paper for $35 (~4 cents a sheet).
How much is typical laser powder cost per two-sided sheet of paper?

If I assume total costs at about 5 cents a sheet, that book costs me
about $6.25 to print. But, the author recommends color. Plus you'd want
to bind it somehow. Plus, not all books are in an 8.5x11 form factor.

Larger books will cost correspondingly more.

Other than buying the book new or used on Amazon, do you have helpful
ideas for self printing of electronic design books most efficiently?

[default]

Seems a tad OT for alt.internet.wireless. Followups reset to include
comp.periphs.printers

[Jeff]

"Martin C." <martinc...@nospam-gmail.com> wrote in
news:jku1a8$3t1$1...@speranza.aioe.org:

Staples and FedEx/Kinkos are able to print and bind documents like
that but they are costly - likely more than simply buying the books.
You can get laser paper that is prepunched so that you can use a
normal 3-ring binder for storage. When printing pdf files, you can
resize the pages to fit 8.5x11 paper.

[Martin C.]

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:18:14 +0000, default wrote:

> Followups reset to include comp.periphs.printers

Good idea. Thanks!

BTW, I found more analog design links to try to print efficiently
(somehow):

Analog IC Design, by Phillip E. Allen
http://www.aicdesign.org/scnotes10.html

My goal is to learn analog IC design by reading the free books out there
and using the EDA CAD tools available.

If you have an idea how to print & bind books efficiently, I'd love to
know the secret.

[miso]

How about an Android tablet as an ebook reader. Do you really need hardcopy?

The book is pretty aggressive, covering semiconductors, circuits and
even layout, but seems quite skimpy on basic circuit analysis. Norton,
Thevenin, and of course models of transistors (hybrid Pi, etc). You may
want to get a used copy of Gray and Meyer.

I can see some chip designers arguing with bits of the book, especially
the part on component matching and the use of dummy elements.

[Martin C.]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:45:00 -0700, miso wrote:

> How about an Android tablet as an ebook reader.
> Do you really need hardcopy?

I don't know ... call me old school.

There's just something about having a hard copy around ... something to
flip the pages of ... to write in the margin ... to put a bookmark in ...
that just feels right.

I can't get that on a little screen of my laptop.

BTW, I'm still looking for a good cmos analog circuit to capture,
simulate, and lay out ...

To that end, I found this set of books on the design of cmos op amps from
ADI (the masters of analog!):

Op Amp Applications Handbook
http://www.analog.com/library/analogDialogue/archives/39-05/
op_amp_applications_handbook.html

Linear Circuit Design Handbook
http://www.analog.com/library/analogDialogue/archives/43-09/
linear_circuit_design_handbook.html

A DESIGNER'S GUIDE TO INSTRUMENTATION AMPLIFIERS (3RD EDITION)
http://www.analog.com/en/specialty-amplifiers/instrumentation-amplifiers/
products/design-handbooks/cu_dh_designers_guide_to_instrumentation_amps/
resources/fca.html

TI Design Guide: Op Amps For Everyone:
http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slod006b/slod006b.pdf

Circuits I have Known:
http://controlsignalconverter.com/docs/circuits_i_have_known.pdf

[miso]

Well for capture and simulation, it is hard to beat LTC spice. At least
for windows.
> http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/#LTspice

For layout, do you mean PCB or integrated circuit?

Gray and Meyer has some CMOS design in it. I have a number of book on
CMOS analog design, but there aren't that many secrets to it. Plenty of
other textbooks on CMOS analog. Phillip Allen, Alan Grebene for
instance. Not free of course, but they are actual textbooks.

Incidentally Hans' improved mirrors are kind of marginal. What most CMOS
companies do is use two different threshold devices based on which poly
is used. One device has a normal threshold, and the other is close to
zero. You use the low threshold device for the cascode element. Hans
circuit tries to do this by sizing the devices, but that produces a very
large device as the cascode element, which in turn has significant
capacitance. That might be all the process he used was capable of doing,
but the dual poly scheme goes back to the NMOS analog days when I was
using Intel's double poly NMOS.

ADI is fine, but these days, there are good analog designs out of TI,
LTC, Maxim and maybe a few others. But note that CMOS linear as a means
to produce analog components is marginal at best. The advantage to CMOS
linear is to product systems on a chip rather than precision components.
Note I would designate oversampled converters and charge redistribution
circuits as systems on a chip.

[Martin C.]

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:42:03 -0700, miso wrote:

> CMOS linear as a means
> to produce analog components is marginal at best.

I think I'll design for MOSIS ...

This paper seems to have a good design for me to try from beginning to
end to capture, simulate, and then lay out:

http://www.asee.org/documents/sections/middle-atlantic/spring-2008/02-
Design-Simulation-and-Testing-of-MOSIS-Fabricated-CMOS-Operational-
Amplifiers-for-Class-Projects-in-an-Analog-IC-Design-Course.pdf

What do you think of the design for a first pass?

[Martin C.]

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 03:57:54 -0400, Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

>> > Other than buying the book new or used on Amazon, do you have helpful
>> > ideas for self printing of electronic design books most efficiently?

UPDATE:

We moved the discussion over to alt.home.repair which has already enough
references for anyone to print, cut, and bind book at home for about five
bucks.

[Bennett]

Have you considered a Kindle?

On 3/27/2012 10:27 PM, Martin C. wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:18:14 +0000, default wrote:
>
>> Followups reset to include comp.periphs.printers
>
> Good idea. Thanks!
>
> BTW, I found more analog design links to try to print efficiently
> (somehow):
>
> Analog IC Design, by Phillip E. Allen
> http://www.aicdesign.org/scnotes10.html
>
> My goal is to learn analog IC design by reading the free books out there
> and using the EDA CAD tools available.
>

> If you have an idea how to print& bind books efficiently, I'd love to
> know the secret.
>
>

[Martin C.]

On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:38:06 -0700, Bennett wrote:

> Have you considered a Kindle?

Never.

I enjoy leafing through a real paper book!

It's like the difference between sugar and saccharin.

[The Real Bev]

On 04/01/2012 06:50 PM, Martin C. wrote:

> On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:38:06 -0700, Bennett wrote:
>
>> Have you considered a Kindle?
> Never.
>
> I enjoy leafing through a real paper book!

Yes. OTOH, printing a digital book seems like something no sane person
would ever want to do.

> It's like the difference between sugar and saccharin.

Yeah. One makes you fat and the other gives you cancer (or some
as-yet-undiscovered disease).

Is there some utility that will print 4 pages on one sheet and
ultimately allow you to flip the stack of paper and print the second
half on the back?

I try to use paper only for stuff that I actually NEED paper for; I
really wish that digital cameras had been invented 60 years ago :-(

--
Cheers, Bev
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I never understood why anyone would go to the trouble to write a novel
when you can just go out and buy one for a few bucks." -- lpogoda

[Michael Black]

On Sun, 1 Apr 2012, The Real Bev wrote:

> On 04/01/2012 06:50 PM, Martin C. wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:38:06 -0700, Bennett wrote:
>>
>>> Have you considered a Kindle?
>> Never.
>>
>> I enjoy leafing through a real paper book!
>
> Yes. OTOH, printing a digital book seems like something no sane person would
> ever want to do.
>

I have mixed feelings. I do like a book, and dislike getting new things
that don't have a real manual.

So when I got a digital camera a few years back, I did print out some of
the manual, though promptly lost it in a pile of other papers.

I think for something like that, the trick is to print out the sections
that actually matter. I don't need an introduction to digital cameras, or
safety instructions, or all that stuff about printing photos. But setting
the controls is something I havent' done much, so I print those.

Someone said "you can't highlight and mark digital texts". But you can
often just cut and paste, saving key points into a separate file. I've
done that when approaching a new program, look for posts about it and save
interesting bits, read the faq and save the bits I need at the moment. It
works.

>
> I try to use paper only for stuff that I actually NEED paper for; I really
> wish that digital cameras had been invented 60 years ago :-(
>

IN some ways, the ereaders and tablets may actually help that process.
Reading at a desk, because the computer is there, isn't so great, but on a
tablet you can read it anywhere, and there's a coziness that isn't there
with a full computer, or even laptop.

PDAs came and went, nobody wanting that function without a phone. Tablets
are in effect larger PDAs, coming back with wifi built in. It's kind of
silly to keep notes on a computer if you can't keep the notes handy with
you, but once you can carry them around on an ereader or tablet, then you
actually have the notes of things you need to do when you need to do them.

Michael

[The Real Bev]

On 04/01/2012 08:51 PM, Michael Black wrote:

> On Sun, 1 Apr 2012, The Real Bev wrote:
>
>> On 04/01/2012 06:50 PM, Martin C. wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:38:06 -0700, Bennett wrote:
>>>
>>>> Have you considered a Kindle?
>>> Never.
>>>
>>> I enjoy leafing through a real paper book!
>>
>> Yes. OTOH, printing a digital book seems like something no sane person would
>> ever want to do.
>>
> I have mixed feelings. I do like a book, and dislike getting new things
> that don't have a real manual.

I've found that I use the manual I download from the manufacturer's site
to be much more useful than the paper manual -- it's WAY easier to
search a pdf file than a paper manual.

> So when I got a digital camera a few years back, I did print out some of
> the manual, though promptly lost it in a pile of other papers.

I really hate the way they seem to arrange manuals now. Apparently
'leap in and just use the damn thing' is what most people do, rather
than actually configuring it.

> I think for something like that, the trick is to print out the sections
> that actually matter. I don't need an introduction to digital cameras, or
> safety instructions, or all that stuff about printing photos. But setting
> the controls is something I havent' done much, so I print those.

OTOH, I have the paper manual for the aftermarket cd/radio/mp3 player in
my car because the damn thing has menus and submenus and I hate
hierarchical controls. I'm really impressed with the guy (from Fry's)
who installed it -- he set it up the way I would have without even asking!

> Someone said "you can't highlight and mark digital texts". But you can
> often just cut and paste, saving key points into a separate file. I've
> done that when approaching a new program, look for posts about it and save
> interesting bits, read the faq and save the bits I need at the moment. It
> works.

>> I try to use paper only for stuff that I actually NEED paper for; I really
>> wish that digital cameras had been invented 60 years ago :-(
>>
> IN some ways, the ereaders and tablets may actually help that process.
> Reading at a desk, because the computer is there, isn't so great, but on a
> tablet you can read it anywhere, and there's a coziness that isn't there
> with a full computer, or even laptop.
>
> PDAs came and went, nobody wanting that function without a phone. Tablets
> are in effect larger PDAs, coming back with wifi built in. It's kind of
> silly to keep notes on a computer if you can't keep the notes handy with
> you, but once you can carry them around on an ereader or tablet, then you
> actually have the notes of things you need to do when you need to do them.

I like the idea of a tablet, but I have large clumsy fingers and virtual
keyboards are nearly impossible for me to use, even the ones on 10"
tablets. I can't even imagine trying to use one on a phone.

--
Cheers, Bev
=================================================================
"In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has
had to worry about where the next meal would come from."
-- Peter S. Drucker, who invented management

[Martin C.]

On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:37:27 -0700, The Real Bev wrote:

> Is there some utility that will print 4 pages on one sheet and
> ultimately allow you to flip the stack of paper and print the second
> half on the back?

I understand your comment about 'printing a digital book' being,
essentially, insane. I agree. In a way. I just like paper for technical
things (scribbles, highlighting, calculations, and the like).

As for utilities, the only ones I know about are "Fineprint" for Windows
and "fprint & fp" for Linux.

I am positive Fineprint will do any imposition printing you might need.
I'm not so sure of the 'fp' and 'fprint' Linux alternatives though.