Blog / About Me

Hey there! I'm Eric, and I've been obsessed with electronic circuits practically ever since I was born. When I was little, I would play around with alligator clips and batteries and build simple circuits. Once, I made a vibration motor, encased it in a metal can, and made a "rattle machine!"

One Saturday morning, we were looking on FaceBook for nearby yard sales and found out a family was moving and was giving away many things for free. Enthused, we went to check it out. We discovered Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, and hundreds of other components. The man who owned it all noticed that we were interested in the electronics, so he went inside and later came back with giant bins of various electronic things in tow. There was an oscilloscope, a function generator, two RF signal generators, and more! If you've ever watched my retro oscilloscope video, retro RF generator video, or old lab tech lot video, now you know where I got the equipment. He also gave us a touchscreen monitor with a RasPi 2B and got us another monitor with a RasPi 3B inside! We collected so many items that we had to make several trips to and from the house to bring it all home.

These supplies helped me pursue my love for electronics so much further, and in the process of researching what each component did, I learned so much about the fabulous world of electronics. A good understanding of electronics is essential to navigating our 21st-century world. I feel this way because I have had to help people with electronics so much, from running around the classroom showing people how to use a webcam to assisting an Apple Silicon user in manually installing Rosetta. Having a technological skillset also opens up many career opportunities.

Recently, I have taken my skills to a new level, working with ICs and discrete components. For example, I have made a circuit where a 555 timer IC generates a clock pulse for a Z80 CPU. The Z80 has LEDs connected to its output pins and resistors bridging its inputs to ground, imitating a no-op. This makes the LEDs visually count in binary as the processor cycles through its output buses, leading to an interesting light pattern.

In addition to physical components, I have dived into programming, mainly in Python. Although I'm a beginner, I know enough to create an AI program using the PaLM API. I also used my HTML skills to create many aspects of this website, though most of the design is by the fellows at HTML5Up.

I am excited to share my passion and knowledge for electronics with the world through this website and my YouTube channel. I will continue pursuing my interest in technology as I enter new, more advanced fields of computing and electrical engineering. I hope you find this website helpful in your electronics learning journey.

Enjoy,

Eric from esTech