I fell in love with Electronics at 16 precisely because of these kind of books that 60's printed full of them. I discovered them in my father's book collection in early 90's and these were my "drug gateway" to my programming career.

Having electronics and hardware background made my programming so much easier as it was easier to understand some concepts and choices that to "pure software" engineers appeared weird.

These days I love to combine hardware and software integration and boy oh boy, it pays so much better. Not many programmers out there that will offer a bill acceptor and/or magnetic card reader integration for a POS solution when your local restaurant wants to modernize their shop.

Show these kind of books to your kids, you'll never know where the rabbit jumps from.