Charles Platt is a Contributing Editor and regular columnist for Make magazine, where he writes about electronics. He is the author of the highly successful introductory hands-on book, Make: Electronics, and the sequel, Make: More Electronics.

His book Easy Electronics claims to be the easiest available introduction to the field. His Make: Tools provides a hands-on introduction to workshop tools.

Platt's ambitious reference work, Encyclopedia of Electronic Components, consists of three volumes, two of which were coauthored with physicist Fredrik Jannson.

Platt was a Senior Writer for Wired magazine. As a prototype designer, he created semi-automated rapid cooling devices with medical applications, and air-deployable equipment for first responders. He was the sole author of four mathematical-graphics software packages, and has been fascinated by electronics since he put together a telephone answering machine from a tape recorder and military-surplus relays at age 15. He lives in a Northern Arizona wilderness area, where he has his own workshop for prototype fabrication and projects that he writes about for Make magazine.