Radio shack had a really good book for an introduction to digital logic, I have it somewhere....
I think this isn't it, but I think it's the predecessor to the one I have.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ENGINEER-MINI-NO...08112012r21521
Forrest Mims did a lot of books on electronics for radio shack, back when it wasn't a cell-phone kiosk.
I'll look up the one I have tomorrow.
I'm assuming that you're talking about the MDX software, and you're looking to build loops with the configurator?
The first thing you should know is that each function you are building is a statement, that get's read in by the MDX software. With one exception, all of the statements are IF statements. They all follow the standard format IF(expression) THEN DO (something) ELSE{anti-THEN} DO (something else)
You don't see that part when you're building the functions, the whitespace that you see is where you start writing your expression.
Expressions can be simple, or they can be very complicated. The main goal of an expression is to produce a boolean result that is either true or false. If the result is true, then the statements that are in your "then" list get executed. That last sentence is the english equivalent of what the function does. If you need more help with that, any introductory programming book will do the job. {CODE, by Microsoft Press is a fun little book to read}.
The THEN statements are not as flexible as the IF statement. There is a window that pops up with list-boxes allowing you to set a variable to a value or increment a variable up and down or, turn on or off outputs, and some other things. But you don't get too much custom control over that statement.
The IF statements are where you can and should do almost anything. It's not exactly like a boolean logic diagram, but it reads very similar.
I could go on about IF statements if you like, but it's mostly programming. So I'd pick up a book on the particular code you want to learn VB, BASIC, C, C++, C#, etc. and start there. It will probably be more useful to you than any digital logic book, in the long run. However digital logic is a good brick in that foundation. As long as the programming book is truely introductory, it will introduce you in to thinking in code. And because MDX skinning isn't truely coding, you'll be able to do many things rather quickly. I'm no code-slinger, but I feel I'm learning to express my thoughts in MDX more and more freely by the day.
I'm guessing you have some ideas of what you want your brain to do like:
I want my shower to turn on and automatically adjust to the pre-set temperature when my alarm clock goes off, but only if I'm in my bed and only on weekdays, and I want the temperature in the shower to vary depending on what temperature the air in the house is, and I want the A/C to turn off for a few minutes at the end so I don't shiver when I get out.
(Sure, it would be nice if calender items like date and time were available to use for this, but they're not yet, so we'll use a digital input and find a wire in the alarm clock that goes to ground when the alarm clock is alarming).
Turning something like that ridiculous thought into logic is something along the lines of what I think you want to be able to do easily.
So I've planned out the inputs and sensors I want to use, and I have a cool electronically controlled shower valve I have to put in, but that's the easy part.
Aside from the calendar stuff, it's all something you can do with the functions in MDX. And functions are a form of code, I'd get a programming book.
"Thinking in C" was a pretty good course. I'm not sure if you can find that anymore though. There's tons of books out there though. You won't have to learn to be an expert programmer to do what you want here, not by a long shot.
I'm sure there's some more people than just me that would jump in and try to help you through some examples you provide, so that you can get the hang of it.
There's more, but I'll hold off.
Linear Mode
