Thanks for your feedback Bob, see below: On 5/10/06, Bob Parks wrote: > Ok, not 100% sure what you mean about the books, Vasile, but I > quickly looked up these McGraw-Hill electronics books on Amazon: > > Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius : 28 Build-It-Yourself > > http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071426094/qid=1147220271/sr=1-13/ref=sr_1_13/104-7948617-8449517?s=books&v=glance&n=283155 > > Programming & Customizing PICmicro Microcontrollers > > http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071361723/qid=1147220440/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7948617-8449517?s=books&v=glance&n=283155 This is a good book if we cut half from it and threw away, but readers taste are different... > Judging from the fact that they came out in paperback editions or 2nd > editions and seem to hold their value, I'd say that they did pretty > well. If the book is out under a year, you can also tell from the > Amazon rating down at the bottom of the listing. Those are all > healthy for these books being out so long. The numbers aren't exact, > but you can get an order-of-magnitude sales figure from that. A book > rated 10,000 on Amazon is selling about 15 books a month. I would > take a wild guess they sold over 15,000 copies, and Evil Genius could > have sold over 40,000. Author contracts are typically made for 7 - > 14% of net sales, which is around 40 - 50% of list price of the > book. So there you go. > > By the way, the magazine pays me to write about Microchip, not the > company. The magazine wants it probably because of the stock > valuation. It was my idea to try to tie their success to how they > treat the engineers. > > If you could answer one question for me: To do this story, I started > opening up all the electronics in my house to see which uses > freescale, atmel, microchip. It's not very relevant, you're living probably next door to Microchip (I mean in the US). In the Europe there arent so many products with PICs inside like Atmel inside. Atmel is much cheaper here. Also the faster 8051 clones (which are many, some of them having already WIFI support inside) If you'll buy a japanese product,will have japanese microcontroller inside. You know what I'm saying. Why do some manufacturers grind off the > name and model numbers off the chips? Why? I don't know. How they're doing: There are two methodes, just alcohool cleaning (so using a good microscope you'll find the name of the cip) or file cleaning where the microscope offers no clue. In this situation you have to found the producers country and with a quite hard dig you may found the chip name by reverse engineering of the schematics plus datasheet inspection of the most used microcontrollers in the producers country. greetings, Vasile One of the products I tried > to open up had all the chips wiped clean. Maybe it was just a fluke? > > Here's my list so far: > > Atmel: > > Honeywell 7-day programmable thermostat - ATMEGAA32L > > ST: > > Microsoft I-Feel Mouse -- ST72T631L4M1 > > Freescale: > > Logitech Trackball -- 68HC908JC3 > > Microchip: > > First Years Baby Monitor -- PIC16C505 > > Onset HoboWare Sensors -- PIC16F684 > > Microsoft Mouse -- PIC16C54C > > iPod remote control -- PIC12C508 > > Kidde Fire Alarm --- PIC16LCE625 > > Holtek: > > EPT Pregnancy Test (don't ask) - HT48 > > > >I'm a spurious user of Microchip pics, located in the East of the > >Europe and some very small amount of time at NY. Maxim looks much > >better to me than Microchip talking about the feedback and implication > >in user's real problems. > >So, I'll vote for Maxim, but you'll have to write about Microchip... > >hard stuff, but if they pay you well, no problem. > >BTW, I've seein many books (most of them published by Mc Graw-Hill) in > >which the first 40 pages the author is talking (using pictures) a bout > >how looks a hammer, a drilling machine, a soldering iron or a > >prototyping card. > >The next few chapters are how to mount a LED into the holes and make > >it blink using a PIC and usualy a compiler. > >I'm just curious, -and as a writer you must know- those kind of books > >can be sold well in the US ? > > > >cheers and thx, > >Vasile > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist