This book explains clearly the operating principles of 'real world' electronic devices, including video recorders, compact disk players, and mobile phones. Each chapter begins with a brief historical overview of the device concerned. The author then describes the key principles of each device's operation and presents a block circuit diagram. Next he analyzes these 'real world' circuits in detail, and, finally, he discusses the present state-of-the-art. This approach will help to integrate the many different aspects of an electrical engineer's course work, from physical optics to digital signal processing, as never before. Very accessible and containing over 350 illustrations and many exercises, this book will be an ideal textbook for undergraduate students of electrical engineering, and will also appeal to practising engineers.