The electronics world has lost a guru. On June 7th this year, [Don Lancaster] passed away. [Brad] from Tech Time Traveller paid tribute to [Don] in a recent video. [Don Lancaster] was perhaps best known as the designer of the TV Typewriter. The Typewriter drew characters on a TV screen when the user typed on a keyboard. It was the fundamental part of a simple terminal. This was quite an accomplishment in 1973 when the article was first published.
[Don] embodied the hacker spirit by figuring out low-cost (cheap) ways to overcome obstacles. His genius was his ability to communicate his methods in a way even non-technical people could understand. Keyboards are a great example. Back in the 1970’s a simple keyboard cost hundreds of dollars. [Don] figured out how to build one from scratch and published an article explaining how to do it.
Like many people we cover here on Hackaday, [Don] was quite a character. His website layout hasn’t changed much since the 1990’s, but the content has grown. To say he was a prolific writer would be an understatement. PostScript, Magic Sinewaves, and patents are just a few of his favorite topics. [Don’s] recent work involved the research of prehistoric canals in the American Southwest.
Everyone here at Hackaday sends our deepest condolences to Don’s family.
Featured image from [Brad’s] Tech Time Traveller video thumbnail. Thanks to [Brad] for his help with this article.
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