Chemical engineering undergraduate students at Virginia Tech played an extremely important role in the history of the Bugbooks. They were the first students to be taught using Bugbooks I and II, and also the first students to use the Bugbook predecessor, namely, the “Experiments in Digital Electronics” workbook. No mention of chemical engineering students is made in the “Bug Book History” and “Bugbook Story” Internet narratives.
The reason why I wrote the original Bugbooks is told in my April 23, 1998 memorandum to Sue Clauson, who was an editor for Virginia Tech magazine. It is available at the bbookhistory.com website.
Chemical engineering students are the reason why I wrote not only Bugbooks I and II, but also Bugbooks III, V, and VI.
Bugbooks I and II focused on the variety of 7400-series integrated-circuit (IC) chips, including small-scale integration (SSI), medium-scale integration (MSI), and even one example of large-scale integration (LSI). I wrote these two books because I was curious about how and why digital chips worked. My books are a precise record of my learning experience.
I also was curious about how a computer worked. Along came Jon Titus with his pioneering MD-1 8080A-microprocessor trainer. I had at my home probably the 2nd or 3rd trainer that he built. My first action was to incorrectly plug power to the trainer, thus burning out the $360 microprocessor chip. This design flaw was immediately rectified by Jon by adding a diode to the power input.
The result of my learning experience about how to program and interface the 8080A microprocessor chip was Bugbook III. I recall that I wrote all of the chapters – and drew all of the figures – of this book with the exception of Unit 8 on the subject of microprocessor interrupts. Jon wrote that chapter. David Larsen wrote nothing. Chris Titus was not yet part of our group.
The first chemical engineering student to test my Bugbook III experiments was Bu Up Kim. A photo of him testing the book was published somewhere. Other than Bu Up Kim, who has been practicing medicine for about 30 years, I used no other student to test any of my Bugbook experiments. Such experiments went directly from my imagination and IBM Selectric typewriter to the printed book.
The first students who used the MD-1 microprocessor trainer and Bugbook III were chemical engineering students in my senior –elective, chemical-engineering lab course.
Over the years 1974 through 1989 I taught 7400-series integrated circuits (Bugbooks I, II, V, and VI), 8080A microprocessor programming and interfacing (Bugbooks III, V, and VI), and Z80A microprocessor programming and interfacing (Foxware modules One and Two) to approximately 1000 chemical engineering students. My undergraduate, chemical-engineering courses ceased in 1989 because of the transition at Virginia Tech from the quarter system to the semester system. By that time, IBM personal computers had made a significant impact upon engineering education at Virginia Tech.
After March 12, 1979, I no longer communicated with David Larsen, and the educational collaboration between the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry ended.