Forrest M. Mims III is an amateur scientist, magazine columnist, and author of the popular Getting Started in Electronics and Engineer's Mini-Notebook series of instructional books that was originally sold in Radio Shack electronics stores. Mims graduated from Texas A&M University in 1966 with a major in government and minors in English and history. He became a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force.
Although he has no formal academic training in science,Mims has had a successful career as a science author, researcher, lecturer and syndicated columnist.
I spent so many summer afternoons with this book when I was 13. Built several of the 555 and 748 circuits and dreamed of logic gates in my sleep, but I lost my copy, which had brown soldering iron burns on a number of its pages, long long ago.