6 ms·

Don Lancaster has died

149 points by magoghm 3y ago

magoghm 3y ago
Author of TV Typewriter Cookbook, Cheap Video Cookbook, and many other electronics books.
- teddyh 3y ago
  Also The Incredible Secret Money Machine, which may be more relevant to this audience.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster
sizzzzlerz 3y ago
I used to read his articles in the old Popular Electronics as well as reading some of his books. I even built a couple of his simpler projects. I credit him with fanning my enthusiasm for electronics which ultimately led to getting by BSEE and MSEE degrees and having a 43 year career here in Silicon Valley. Thanks, Don.
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
  I got taken in more than once by his Marcia Swampfelder articles. e.g. https://tinaja.com/glib/marcia.pdf https://tinaja.com/glib/marcia.pdf --> Majestic "Mighty Monarch of the Air" AM radio
- cf100clunk 3y ago
  My dad built one of Lancaster's TV Typewriters back in the '70s for a black & white TV studio system. It was a huge improvement in speed and correctibility for static onscreen text overlayed on the video output, when previously it was done with physical hardware and chroma key using white letters on a black background.
analog31 3y ago
Sad to hear. Black stripe for us hardware folks. What an inspiration.
- windowshopping 3y ago
  > Black stripe for us hardware folks I've never heard this expression and couldn't find any references to it by googling. What does this mean?
  - erik_seaberg 3y ago
    HN UI change after a major death in tech. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5990015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5990015
h2odragon 3y ago
I tried to explain to my wife why Mr Lancaster's use of the phrase: "The Postscript general purpose programming language" was a sign that he was even nuttier than me. Too much backstory to explain, alas. He inspired me by demonstrating that things were worth doing just because they could be, even when it probably wasn't the best idea. The scrap electronics sales and descriptions on his site were a treat, too. RIP, and many thanks for the inspiration.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  I totally agree with him on that! PostScript is like a cross between LISP and FORTH, but a lot more like LISP than FORTH. https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-shape-of-psiber-space-october-1989-19e2dfa4d91e https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-shape-of-psiber-space-octo... And yes there was a hell of a lot of amazing backstory to Don Lancaster's love of PostScript, which I mentioned and linked to in another posting in this discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36546584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36546584
djmips 3y ago
Very inspirational for people of my generation looking to learn everything about computers. An early fount of knowledge through his prodigous publishing. I personally learned a lot about hardware and postcript among others from Don.
lcuff 3y ago
In the Incredible Secret Money Machine, one of his tips was to cut off the power cord to your TV. (Pre Internet era!) The solid advice to not let yourself get distracted is invaluable. And harder than ever in today's world. He also welcomed people contacting him directly with questions. Amazing. (Derek Sivers does than now: amazing).
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  Back around 1997 or so I had just bought a copy of The Incredible Secret Money Machine and I called him at the number he posted in his Nuts & Volts column just to see what would happen. He actually answered and we had a short, but interesting conversation. He really seemed like he'd be fun to hang out with. And as he predicted, my copy of ISMM disappeared. Lent it to my business partner and never saw it again :-(
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > And as he predicted, my copy of ISMM disappeared. Lent it to my business partner and never saw it again I bought a handful of copies used (they've been out of print for a while), because I kept wearing them out.
OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
I loved his TTL Cookbook. As a kid in the '70s a small breadboard, 9V battery + 7805 regulator, and assortment of chips, wires, and LEDs kept me amused for hours. Little did I know that I'd put a lot of that to use in a career that wound up in the physical sciences as opposed to electrical engineering. I would take my kit with me on family trips. Back in those days I could put them on an airplane tray table and pass the long hours taking ideas from the Cookbook and expressing them in hardware. I visited his tinaja.com site regularly and even posted about it to HN although to almost no response. Farewell Mr. Lancaster, you will be missed.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  Taking a small breadboard, 9V battery + 7805 regulator, and assortment of chips, wires, and LEDs on an airplane??! How September 10th! These days that'll get you arrested at gunpoint. https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40
  - OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
    Those were the days, indeed!
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    When I worked at Aph Consulting in the late 70s, Glen Hightower who ran it would make a single wirewrap board computer installed in a Samsonite briefcase, designed to run the first handheld LED games. On a flight, security would show great interest in his briefcase full of handmade wires and electronics. He'd satisfy them that it wasn't dangerous by pulling out the controller and playing the game.
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      Was that the football game? PS. loved the "tired? time to go home" poster, printed in a fuzzy font, hanging at APh.
DonHopkins 3y ago
I have always been a huge fan of Don Lancaster's wizardly writing about PostScript, who not only regularly published in Computer Shopper, but also generously ran a free PostScript help line at his own personal phone number. But Woody Baker was by far his biggest most enthusiastic fan of all (and highly eccentric in personality and coding style), and he would regularly extol and evangelize Don Lancaster's virtues and ideas on comp.lang.postscript. Once around March 4 1990, I gave Woody Baker some feedback on his comp.lang.postscript faq, including the suggesting that he might consider leaving Don Lancaster's personal phone number out of it, but he replied: >Again, I want to thank you for your contributions. You and D. Cortesi have been most helpful. The two of you gave me very in depth feedback. I have moved almost all the editorializing to the end. I have moved the style stuff to the end. As for DON LANCASTER, I left his phone number in. Don publishes it regularly in the computer shopper, as a free PostScript help line. He is self-employed, and a widely published Author, for TAB books among other things. He says he averages 80 helpline calls a day. He also sells programs and books that he is self publishing. I can assure you, he won't mind at all. Woody loved to talk in depth about how amazing and inspirational Don Lancaster was, and defend his well deserved honor and reputation whenever anybody criticized his work. http://computer-programming-forum.com/36-postscript/ff79f7dd099e02c8-2.htm http://computer-programming-forum.com/36-postscript/ff79f7dd... >True. Don lives in an APPLE II world. You are wrong, however in certain statements. He has (unfortunatly) mentioned what FLXPROC does. It happens to be critical to certain things, that several consultants are working on here and there. He knows enough not to blab some things, and jerk work out from under individuals (at least some of the time). Don has dug pretty deeply into certain areas of PS, and I have dug deeply into other areas of PS. Don is first and formost a writer. He's self employed, and extremely intellegent. I am first and formost a software engineer, and secondly a writer. I tend to write, however for clients. I'm confident that I know what FLXPROC does, and what it is good for. And I'm sure Don does also. I more or less told him about FLXPROC and he more or less told me what it does. After first quarter 1990, some things will be essentially worthless as consulting info, and will rapidly become public knowlege. I don't applogize for keeping the lid on some things. I'm a bit of a mercenary in a way. I like consulting. >Cheers >Woody Their great respect was mutual: https://archive.org/stream/Ask_the_Guru_v1 https://archive.org/stream/Ask_the_Guru_v1 https://archive.org/stream/Ask_the_Guru_v1/Ask_the_Guru_v1_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/Ask_the_Guru_v1/Ask_the_Guru_v1_d... >Don Lancaster's ASK THE GURU Selected reprints >Copyright c. 1987 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics, Box 809, Thatcher, AZ 85552. (520) 428-4073 >Electronically self-published using the Apple //e computer and the LaserWriter Plus. All graphics were done in their entirety by ProDOS Applewriter 2.1. [...] >I don't think I was ever more amazed when Woody Baker of The Copier Store mailed me back one of my very own laser printed business cards — redone in real ink in an almost "embossed" gold! Turns out Woody had found an older Omnicrom machine scunging around unsold in the back of his warehouse and fired it up. Lo and behold, the instant conversion of any toner image to real ink in stunning colors! Example 10 of Don Lancaster's Postscript Show & Tell beautifully illustrates how an Omnicrom printer works: https://www.tinaja.com/glib/psnt.pdf https://www.tinaja.com/glib/psnt.pdf >Example ten -- What appears hear as a mild-mannered Postscript technical illustration is really the secret of full color laser printing. >Omnicrom sheets are real ink applied to a carrier. You place the sheet in contact with your toner image and then run it back through the fusion rollers a second time. The ink gets fused over the toner.
squarefoot 3y ago
RIP. His TTL and CMOS cookbooks have been of huge help in the late 80s and early 90s with no Internet available. They're still relevant today and highly recommended, especially for learning, since you can't teach the basics to a kid using an Arduino, although you can use it to simulate them later in software. His web page at [1] contains a lot of interesting stuff. Better mirror it before it vanishes. 1 - https://www.tinaja.com/ https://www.tinaja.com/
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
  The Cookbooks are available for free download from the site: https://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtml https://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtml
asdefghyk 3y ago
RIP Don. I still have many of his books , some purchased in the 80s The TV typewriter immediately comes to mind.
mips_r4300i 3y ago
Was just on his website last month to see that he was up to his usual activities and read a couple papers. (His explanation of bicubic pixel resampling is on of the more intuitive ones) It appears he knew something might have gone wrong around the end of May, in which he asks readers to archive his work: >A situation has limited our ability to post daily news and reduced our ability to provide new content. We hope to continue as best we can and have added three sysops. We are also working on providing new phone shortcuts. >Meanwhile, please upload as many of our files to the widest possible range of historical archive preservation sites. as you can. >Backup 128 GB USB copies remain available on our abeja eBay site.
mmphosis 3y ago
VAPORLOCK
JohnFen 3y ago
Another luminary passes. Thank you, Mr. Lancaster. Although I was introduced to him through his electronics books, I think it's no exaggeration to say that of all the books I've read, it was "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" that had the largest influence in my life. Too many years ago, when I was getting ready to start my new business, I read pretty much every business book I could lay my hands on. Although easily the shortest, "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" was the best of them by a longshot. It distills fairly commonsense business advice into a short collection of concentrated wisdom, and tailors it for the one-person venture. I think part of the value is that is isn't an academic treatise on entrepreneurship. It's more like a short writeup on what worked and didn't work for Don's own business ventures. I think that in every business mistake I've made, I can point to a page in that book where he said outright not to do whatever I did.
highflux7 3y ago
From Don's "Incredible Secret Money Machine": a Final thought Many years ago, I was attending a folk concert. The opening act was a single and an unknown flute player, performing in front of the closed stage curtains. His job was to warm up the audience for the high priced help that was soon to follow. He was good. Very good. But as he went along, the music started getting strange and finally downright weird. He was playing chords on his flute, along with notes with unbelievably strong tonal structures. Eventually, the music turned into bunches of Impossible sounding and god-awful squawks. Almost all of the audience got bored and restless as the music seemed to deteriorate. Just then, I happened to notice a friend beside me who had played in and had taught concert band. He was literally on the edge of his chair with his mouth open. He briefly turned to me and said very slowly, ''You can't do that with a flute. It is not possible." Of the thousands of people in the audience, at the most only five realized they were now witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime performance involving the absolute mastery of a very difficult musical instrument. To nearly everyone else, It sounded like a bunch of god-awful squawks. Always play for those five. Don Lancaster Thatcher, AZ
- hirundo 3y ago
  "I guess you guys aren't ready for that, yet. But your kids are gonna love it."
jbottoms 3y ago
Years ago people started 3DPrinting with hot glue guns on a square-cube frame. Don wrote it up as a "Santa Claus Machine" because it could deliver whatever you asked for. That caught my attention and I'm sure there were others that picked up on it. I looked at his column as little fires that kept my imagination going. He was a tremendous help to my career.
jhbadger 3y ago
It's from Don Lancaster's columns in Computer Shopper (yes, Computer Shopper had articles, it wasn't all ads) that I learned Postscript was a real programming language. He used to describe writing Postscript code to make figures, as that was often easier than to use the primitive drawing programs at the time.

149 points by magoghm 3y ago

magoghm 3y ago

Author of TV Typewriter Cookbook, Cheap Video Cookbook, and many other electronics books.

teddyh 3y ago
Also The Incredible Secret Money Machine, which may be more relevant to this audience.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster

sizzzzlerz 3y ago

I used to read his articles in the old Popular Electronics as well as reading some of his books. I even built a couple of his simpler projects. I credit him with fanning my enthusiasm for electronics which ultimately led to getting by BSEE and MSEE degrees and having a 43 year career here in Silicon Valley. Thanks, Don.

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
I got taken in more than once by his Marcia Swampfelder articles. e.g. https://tinaja.com/glib/marcia.pdf https://tinaja.com/glib/marcia.pdf --> Majestic "Mighty Monarch of the Air" AM radio
cf100clunk 3y ago
My dad built one of Lancaster's TV Typewriters back in the '70s for a black & white TV studio system. It was a huge improvement in speed and correctibility for static onscreen text overlayed on the video output, when previously it was done with physical hardware and chroma key using white letters on a black background.

analog31 3y ago

Sad to hear. Black stripe for us hardware folks. What an inspiration.

windowshopping 3y ago
> Black stripe for us hardware folks I've never heard this expression and couldn't find any references to it by googling. What does this mean?
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  HN UI change after a major death in tech. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5990015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5990015

h2odragon 3y ago

I tried to explain to my wife why Mr Lancaster's use of the phrase: "The Postscript general purpose programming language" was a sign that he was even nuttier than me. Too much backstory to explain, alas. He inspired me by demonstrating that things were worth doing just because they could be, even when it probably wasn't the best idea. The scrap electronics sales and descriptions on his site were a treat, too. RIP, and many thanks for the inspiration.

DonHopkins 3y ago
I totally agree with him on that! PostScript is like a cross between LISP and FORTH, but a lot more like LISP than FORTH. https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-shape-of-psiber-space-october-1989-19e2dfa4d91e https://donhopkins.medium.com/the-shape-of-psiber-space-octo... And yes there was a hell of a lot of amazing backstory to Don Lancaster's love of PostScript, which I mentioned and linked to in another posting in this discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36546584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36546584

djmips 3y ago

Very inspirational for people of my generation looking to learn everything about computers. An early fount of knowledge through his prodigous publishing. I personally learned a lot about hardware and postcript among others from Don.

lcuff 3y ago

In the Incredible Secret Money Machine, one of his tips was to cut off the power cord to your TV. (Pre Internet era!) The solid advice to not let yourself get distracted is invaluable. And harder than ever in today's world. He also welcomed people contacting him directly with questions. Amazing. (Derek Sivers does than now: amazing).

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
Back around 1997 or so I had just bought a copy of The Incredible Secret Money Machine and I called him at the number he posted in his Nuts & Volts column just to see what would happen. He actually answered and we had a short, but interesting conversation. He really seemed like he'd be fun to hang out with. And as he predicted, my copy of ISMM disappeared. Lent it to my business partner and never saw it again :-(
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > And as he predicted, my copy of ISMM disappeared. Lent it to my business partner and never saw it again I bought a handful of copies used (they've been out of print for a while), because I kept wearing them out.

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago

I loved his TTL Cookbook. As a kid in the '70s a small breadboard, 9V battery + 7805 regulator, and assortment of chips, wires, and LEDs kept me amused for hours. Little did I know that I'd put a lot of that to use in a career that wound up in the physical sciences as opposed to electrical engineering. I would take my kit with me on family trips. Back in those days I could put them on an airplane tray table and pass the long hours taking ideas from the Cookbook and expressing them in hardware. I visited his tinaja.com site regularly and even posted about it to HN although to almost no response. Farewell Mr. Lancaster, you will be missed.

DonHopkins 3y ago
Taking a small breadboard, 9V battery + 7805 regulator, and assortment of chips, wires, and LEDs on an airplane??! How September 10th! These days that'll get you arrested at gunpoint. https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
  Those were the days, indeed!
- WalterBright 3y ago
  When I worked at Aph Consulting in the late 70s, Glen Hightower who ran it would make a single wirewrap board computer installed in a Samsonite briefcase, designed to run the first handheld LED games. On a flight, security would show great interest in his briefcase full of handmade wires and electronics. He'd satisfy them that it wasn't dangerous by pulling out the controller and playing the game.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    Was that the football game? PS. loved the "tired? time to go home" poster, printed in a fuzzy font, hanging at APh.

DonHopkins 3y ago

I have always been a huge fan of Don Lancaster's wizardly writing about PostScript, who not only regularly published in Computer Shopper, but also generously ran a free PostScript help line at his own personal phone number. But Woody Baker was by far his biggest most enthusiastic fan of all (and highly eccentric in personality and coding style), and he would regularly extol and evangelize Don Lancaster's virtues and ideas on comp.lang.postscript. Once around March 4 1990, I gave Woody Baker some feedback on his comp.lang.postscript faq, including the suggesting that he might consider leaving Don Lancaster's personal phone number out of it, but he replied: >Again, I want to thank you for your contributions. You and D. Cortesi have been most helpful. The two of you gave me very in depth feedback. I have moved almost all the editorializing to the end. I have moved the style stuff to the end. As for DON LANCASTER, I left his phone number in. Don publishes it regularly in the computer shopper, as a free PostScript help line. He is self-employed, and a widely published Author, for TAB books among other things. He says he averages 80 helpline calls a day. He also sells programs and books that he is self publishing. I can assure you, he won't mind at all. Woody loved to talk in depth about how amazing and inspirational Don Lancaster was, and defend his well deserved honor and reputation whenever anybody criticized his work. http://computer-programming-forum.com/36-postscript/ff79f7dd099e02c8-2.htm http://computer-programming-forum.com/36-postscript/ff79f7dd... >True. Don lives in an APPLE II world. You are wrong, however in certain statements. He has (unfortunatly) mentioned what FLXPROC does. It happens to be critical to certain things, that several consultants are working on here and there. He knows enough not to blab some things, and jerk work out from under individuals (at least some of the time). Don has dug pretty deeply into certain areas of PS, and I have dug deeply into other areas of PS. Don is first and formost a writer. He's self employed, and extremely intellegent. I am first and formost a software engineer, and secondly a writer. I tend to write, however for clients. I'm confident that I know what FLXPROC does, and what it is good for. And I'm sure Don does also. I more or less told him about FLXPROC and he more or less told me what it does. After first quarter 1990, some things will be essentially worthless as consulting info, and will rapidly become public knowlege. I don't applogize for keeping the lid on some things. I'm a bit of a mercenary in a way. I like consulting. >Cheers >Woody Their great respect was mutual: https://archive.org/stream/Ask_the_Guru_v1 https://archive.org/stream/Ask_the_Guru_v1 https://archive.org/stream/Ask_the_Guru_v1/Ask_the_Guru_v1_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/Ask_the_Guru_v1/Ask_the_Guru_v1_d... >Don Lancaster's ASK THE GURU Selected reprints >Copyright c. 1987 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics, Box 809, Thatcher, AZ 85552. (520) 428-4073 >Electronically self-published using the Apple //e computer and the LaserWriter Plus. All graphics were done in their entirety by ProDOS Applewriter 2.1. [...] >I don't think I was ever more amazed when Woody Baker of The Copier Store mailed me back one of my very own laser printed business cards — redone in real ink in an almost "embossed" gold! Turns out Woody had found an older Omnicrom machine scunging around unsold in the back of his warehouse and fired it up. Lo and behold, the instant conversion of any toner image to real ink in stunning colors! Example 10 of Don Lancaster's Postscript Show & Tell beautifully illustrates how an Omnicrom printer works: https://www.tinaja.com/glib/psnt.pdf https://www.tinaja.com/glib/psnt.pdf >Example ten -- What appears hear as a mild-mannered Postscript technical illustration is really the secret of full color laser printing. >Omnicrom sheets are real ink applied to a carrier. You place the sheet in contact with your toner image and then run it back through the fusion rollers a second time. The ink gets fused over the toner.

squarefoot 3y ago

RIP. His TTL and CMOS cookbooks have been of huge help in the late 80s and early 90s with no Internet available. They're still relevant today and highly recommended, especially for learning, since you can't teach the basics to a kid using an Arduino, although you can use it to simulate them later in software. His web page at [1] contains a lot of interesting stuff. Better mirror it before it vanishes. 1 - https://www.tinaja.com/ https://www.tinaja.com/

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
The Cookbooks are available for free download from the site: https://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtml https://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtml

asdefghyk 3y ago

RIP Don. I still have many of his books , some purchased in the 80s The TV typewriter immediately comes to mind.

mips_r4300i 3y ago

Was just on his website last month to see that he was up to his usual activities and read a couple papers. (His explanation of bicubic pixel resampling is on of the more intuitive ones) It appears he knew something might have gone wrong around the end of May, in which he asks readers to archive his work: >A situation has limited our ability to post daily news and reduced our ability to provide new content. We hope to continue as best we can and have added three sysops. We are also working on providing new phone shortcuts. >Meanwhile, please upload as many of our files to the widest possible range of historical archive preservation sites. as you can. >Backup 128 GB USB copies remain available on our abeja eBay site.

mmphosis 3y ago

VAPORLOCK

JohnFen 3y ago

Another luminary passes. Thank you, Mr. Lancaster. Although I was introduced to him through his electronics books, I think it's no exaggeration to say that of all the books I've read, it was "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" that had the largest influence in my life. Too many years ago, when I was getting ready to start my new business, I read pretty much every business book I could lay my hands on. Although easily the shortest, "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" was the best of them by a longshot. It distills fairly commonsense business advice into a short collection of concentrated wisdom, and tailors it for the one-person venture. I think part of the value is that is isn't an academic treatise on entrepreneurship. It's more like a short writeup on what worked and didn't work for Don's own business ventures. I think that in every business mistake I've made, I can point to a page in that book where he said outright not to do whatever I did.

highflux7 3y ago

From Don's "Incredible Secret Money Machine": a Final thought Many years ago, I was attending a folk concert. The opening act was a single and an unknown flute player, performing in front of the closed stage curtains. His job was to warm up the audience for the high priced help that was soon to follow. He was good. Very good. But as he went along, the music started getting strange and finally downright weird. He was playing chords on his flute, along with notes with unbelievably strong tonal structures. Eventually, the music turned into bunches of Impossible sounding and god-awful squawks. Almost all of the audience got bored and restless as the music seemed to deteriorate. Just then, I happened to notice a friend beside me who had played in and had taught concert band. He was literally on the edge of his chair with his mouth open. He briefly turned to me and said very slowly, ''You can't do that with a flute. It is not possible." Of the thousands of people in the audience, at the most only five realized they were now witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime performance involving the absolute mastery of a very difficult musical instrument. To nearly everyone else, It sounded like a bunch of god-awful squawks. Always play for those five. Don Lancaster Thatcher, AZ

hirundo 3y ago
"I guess you guys aren't ready for that, yet. But your kids are gonna love it."

jbottoms 3y ago

Years ago people started 3DPrinting with hot glue guns on a square-cube frame. Don wrote it up as a "Santa Claus Machine" because it could deliver whatever you asked for. That caught my attention and I'm sure there were others that picked up on it. I looked at his column as little fires that kept my imagination going. He was a tremendous help to my career.

jhbadger 3y ago

It's from Don Lancaster's columns in Computer Shopper (yes, Computer Shopper had articles, it wasn't all ads) that I learned Postscript was a real programming language. He used to describe writing Postscript code to make figures, as that was often easier than to use the primitive drawing programs at the time.