Don graduated from North Allegheny High School in Wexford, Pennsylvania.^[2] He received a BSEE degree from Lafayette College in 1961, and a MSEE from Arizona State University in 1967.^[3]

Lancaster was a writer and engineer, who wrote multiple articles for computer and electronics magazines of the 1970s, including Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics, Dr. Dobb's Journal, 73 Magazine, and Byte. He has written books on electronics, computers, and entrepreneurship, both commercially published and self-published.^[1]

One of his early projects was "TV Typewriter" serial terminal.^[1] The design was accepted by early microcomputer users as it used an ordinary television set for the display and could be built for around USD$200 in parts, at a time when commercial terminals were selling for over $1,000.

Lancaster was an early advocate and developer of what is now known as print-on-demand technology. Lancaster produced his self-published books by re-purposing the game port of an Apple II to transfer PostScript code directly to a laser printer, rather than using a Macintosh running PageMaker. This enabled continuous book production using an inexpensive Apple II, rather than tying up an expensive Macintosh until the print run was complete.

He formerly held a ham radio license (K3BYG).

IC books

• RTL Cookbook (1ed, 1969) (3ed, 2010, ISBN 0-672-20715-X, archive)
• TTL Cookbook (1ed, 1974, ISBN 0-672-21035-5, archive)
• CMOS Cookbook (1ed, 1977) (4ed, 2019, ISBN 0-672-21398-2, archive)
• Active Filter Cookbook (1ed, 1975) (2ed, 1995, ISBN 0-75062986-X, archive)

Project books

• TV Typewriter Cookbook (1ed, 1976) (3ed, 2010, ISBN 0-67221313-3, archive)
• Cheap Video Cookbook (1ed, 1978, ISBN 0-672-21524-1, archive)
• Son of Cheap Video (1ed, 1980, ISBN 0-672-21723-6, archive)

Apple books

• Assembly Cookbook for Apple II/IIe (1ed, 1984) (3ed, 2011, ISBN 978-1-882193-16-5)
• Enhancing Your Apple II - Volume 1 (1ed, 1985, ISBN 0-672-21846-1)
• Enhancing Your Apple II and IIe - Volume 2 (1ed, 1985, ISBN 0-672-21822-4)
• Applewriter Cookbook (1ed, 1986, ISBN 0-672-22460-7)

Programming books

• The Hexadecimal Chronicles (1981) ISBN 0-672-21802-X
• Don Lancaster's Micro Cookbook (Sams, 1982) ISBN 0-672-21828-3

Other

• The Incredible Secret Money Machine (1978) ISBN 0-672-21562-4
• The Incredible Secret Money Machine II (1978) ISBN 978-1-882193-12-7
• Book-On-Demand Resource Kit
• The Case Against Patents: Selected Reprints from "Midnight Engineering" & "Nuts & Volts" Magazines (Synergetics Press, January 1996). Paperback ISBN 1-882193-71-7

• Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair (official site)
• List of Don's magazine articles