The cheap video cookbook
by Don Lancaster · first published 1978
8mentions
5recommended by
8HN commenters
2011–2025first – last mentioned
63% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical hands-on guide to generating video on cheap hardware, covering circuits and techniques for building TV output from simple parts. It has inspired hobbyists and early home-computer tinkerers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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This is nice stuff. I built a TV-Typewriter using Don Lancaster's cheap video cookbook. He pioneered this technique of 'co-processing' with the 6502. However, if you were going to do this today, you would be better off just building a 6502 into an FPGA [1] or buying an existing design [2]…
on “The KimKlone: a radical 6502 redesign” ↗…influential on me. His books were far more useful and instructive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster RTL Cookbook, TTL Cookbook, CMOS Cookbook, Active Filter Cookbook, TV Typewriter Cookbook, Cheap Video Cookbook, Son of Cheap Video, Apple books, Assembly Cookbook for Apple II/IIe, Enhancing Your Apple II - Volume 1, Enhancing Your Apple II and IIe - Volume 2, Applewriter Cookbook, Programming books, The…
on “Forrest Mims and RadioShack” ↗If anyone wants to avoid adding a full scale computer just to get TV out I recommend the late Don Lancaster's The Cheap Video Cookbook and Son of Cheap Video. See https://archive.org/details/donlancaster_socv1/page/n3/mode/..., https://annas-archive.org/isbndb/9780672217234
on “Build an 8-bit computer from scratch (2016)” ↗…complex that you'll never understand what's inside. [3] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/87/be/6b/87be6b2a2906827b23a0... Image at pinterest. P.S. The ultimate must have been the late Don Lancaster's Cheap Video Cookbook or Son of Cheap Video, or the life and business lessons in ISMM [4] [4] https://www.tinaja.com/ismm01.shtml
on “The Great Domestication: How Artificial Intelligence Is Remaking Consciousness” ↗I stil have several of his books within a few feet: the TTL Cookbook was an inspiration back in the day, followed the CMOS version and in particular "The Cheap Video Cookbook" when VT100's were mad expensive things. The book that still get used on a moderately frequent basis is the "Active Filter Cookbook", still very relevant when some hacking with op-amps is required. Oh,…
on “Don Lancaster's “Guru's Lair” Archive” ↗Great work! This reminds me of a book I read over 40 years ago: https://www.amazon.com/Cheap-Video-Cookbook-Donald-Lancaster... Apparently Don has made the above book available on his site: https://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/cvcb1.pdf
on “Analog TV Station on ESP8266” ↗He later had books mentioned in other comments: "The Cheap Video Cookbook" and "Son of Cheap Video". In these he added just a few TTLs to a Kim-1 computer and generated video using mostly software. The Sinclair ZX-80 was much closer to this than to the TV Typewriter (which…
on “Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair Home Page” ↗Author of TV Typewriter Cookbook, Cheap Video Cookbook, and many other electronics books.
on “Don Lancaster Has Died” ↗