Digital Electronics: The Basics, New Ideas & Applications

The book Digital Electronics: The Basics, New Ideas & Applications by M.A. Shustov and A.M. Shustov presents a broad, practice-oriented overview of digital electronics, from the basics to practical circuits and more experimental logic concepts. The content is clearly divided into three parts: fundamentals, new logic approaches, and practical applications.

Digital Electronics Fundamentals

The first part focuses on the foundations of digital electronics. It introduces key concepts and definitions, then explains how logic elements operate and how they are implemented in hardware. Instead of staying only at the theory level, the authors use simple demonstration circuits built from easy-to-find parts such as LEDs, diodes, resistors, and switches. This makes it easier to see how logic 0 and logic 1 behave in real circuits.

 

Topics include logic gates and derived logic elements, flip flops, Schmitt triggers, registers, counters, frequency dividers, decoders, encoders, multiplexers, and demultiplexers. It also covers analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, as well as multifunction timing devices.

New and Unconventional Logic Ideas

The second part of the book looks at logic structures that go beyond the standard gate set. Alongside universal and single-transistor logic elements and thyristor-based logic, the authors introduce non-priority logic elements and special function blocks that are rarely covered in regular textbooks.

Non-priority logic elements are described in detail, including types such as ONLY ALL, EXCEPT ALL, and ONLY ONE OF ALL. Unlike conventional gates, these elements can control how multiple signals are allowed to pass depending on timing and coincidence conditions. It also covers priority and non-priority behavior, fractional logic, reversible logic structures, and optoelectronic and quantum-style logic analogs.

 

This section will appeal especially to readers who enjoy exploring alternative logic concepts and less common design approaches beyond standard textbook solutions.

Practical Circuit Applications

The third part concentrates on practical implementations. It contains a large, well-organized collection of functional circuits, including switches and selectors, pulse generators, pulse width modulators, frequency multipliers and dividers, digital phase shifters, and digital filters. These examples connect theory to usable building blocks for measurement, control, and signal-processing designs.

If you want to move from truth tables to real circuits on your bench, this book gives you plenty to try. It works both as a structured learning path and as a practical idea source when you need a logic function and want to understand what is really happening at circuit level.

Readers who enjoy this hands on approach may also want to look at the related title Electronic Circuits for All by the same authors. That book collects more than 400 tested circuit ideas across power electronics, measurement, generators, filters, switches, and wired and wireless systems, making it a useful companion when you want to expand from digital logic blocks to broader electronic building projects.