Jerry Lawson

When we think of important black individuals, often figures such as Martin Luther King Jr, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass come to mind. All of these leaders have led important societal changes or movements, and made a difference to support those around them in essential ways.

However, sometimes the focus on these icons overshadows other black people who have made more general contributions. When you only see history regarding the Civil Rights Movement and the end of slavery, it’s easy to forget that african americans have been behind contributions to other studies and industries that people use every day.

Jerry Lawson was an engineer in the 1970’s at the beginning of video games becoming a major entertainment venue. He made useful contributions to the industry and the development of new systems which can still be seen in certain systems today. If you enjoy video games, some of the technology behind them may be thanks to Lawson.

Lawson’s life began on December 1st, 1940, in New York City¹. He was interested in electronics from a young age and repaired them to make money before attending Queens College. One of his inspirations was reportedly the work of George Washington Carver². In the 1970’s he began to work at Fairchild, a semiconductor company, as an electrical engineer. During this time period he also met many other major players in the industry, including Steve Jobs as well as Allan Alcorn, the person who created ‘Pong’, who he became friends with. In 1976, he developed the Fairchild Channel F, an early home console that could play basic games. Previously he had also produced arcade games.

The Fairchild Channel F was a massive leap forward in the video game industry, that many consider to be the first step to more advanced consoles such as those produced by Atari, Nintendo, and even the groundwork for the Playstation and Xbox later down the line. The Channel F was the first available home console where games were stored on external cartridges, rather than already built into the machine itself. This allowed for consumers to continue to expand their selection of games without having to buy new consoles, and also created new opportunities for developers.

The Channel F launched, but did not end up becoming a large commercial success. Alcorn claimed this was due to Fairchild’s inexperience with video games³. The very next year, the successful Atari 2600 took the world by storm using the cartridge-based system that Jerry Lawson pioneered. In 1980, Lawson left Fairchild and founded his own games company, Videosoft, which went on to produce other games and software for the more lucrative Atari console. For the remainder of his career he continued to work in engineering and development, and later in life also became an engineering mentor for Stanford students.

Jerry Lawson passed away after increasing health problems from diabetes in 2011 at age 70 in his home in Santa Clara, California. His contributions to the video games as a whole were not extremely big news at the time, but they laid the foundation for the modern-day, multimillion dollar industry that now exists. The next time you pick up a video game, think of the quintessential contributions of Lawson, and others like him.

Citations:

1. https://www.biography.com/inventor/jerry-lawson

2. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/george-washington-carver

3. https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/big-thinkers/jerry-lawson.htm