Good Morning Obots!
The video game/electronic sports industry is BOOMING. There are actually professional gamers – that’s right, people making big money by playing video games. Of course, they’re awfully GOOD at it! Takes a lot of practice….so the next time you tell your kid to quit playing those games, you could be asking the next Jordan of ESports to stop it! LOL However, there are a plethora of careers in the gaming industry and unfortunately the number of minorities in these roles is miniscule to say the least. This week I’ll feature minority “gamers” that have made history or are making it right now.
Jerry Lawson – First Black Video Game Professional
This man? Creator of the FIRST cartridge based video console. Yes, HIM.
Gerald Anderson “Jerry” Lawson (December 1, 1940 – April 9, 2011) was an American electronic engineer known for his work in designing the Fairchild Channel F video game console.
During development of the Channel F in the early-mid 1970s, Lawson was Chief Hardware Engineer and director of engineering and marketing for Fairchild Semiconductor’s video game division. He also founded and ran Videosoft, a video game development company which made software for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s, as the 2600 had displaced the Channel F as the top system in the market.
Lawson was the sole black member of the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of early computer hobbyists which would produce a number of industry legends, including Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Lawson also produced one of the earliest arcade games, Demolition Derby, which debuted in a southern California pizzeria shortly after Pong. Lawson later worked with the Stanford mentor program and was preparing to write a book on his career.
In March 2011, Lawson was honored as an industry pioneer by the International Game Developers Association. One month later, he died of complications from diabetes. At the time of his death, he resided in Santa Clara, California.
Growing up the son of a low-income family from a housing project in Jamaica, New York, that never held back a young Jerry Lawson. His mother, was determined to make sure her son went to the top schools available and received the very best education. His father, a long shoreman, had a ravenous appetite for science and technology, which he passed onto his son.
After attending Queens College and The City College of New York, Lawson began an engineering career, working in emerging technologies with companies such as Federal Electric, Grumman Aircraft, and PRD Electronics. Eventually he landed at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1970 working with their full-line semiconductors and microprocessors.
During his first few years with Fairchild, Jerry started getting involved with more computer technology, as his interests grew he joined the Homebrew Computer Club and befriended the founders of Atari, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, as well as the engineer behind Pong, Alan Alcorn.
Nolan and Ted had shown Jerry their creation, Computer Space, the first commercially available coin-op arcade game, after which Jerry started tinkering around at home, designing and building his own coin-op arcade machine, Demolition Derby, using microprocessors from Fairchild.
When the execs at Fairchild learned of his arcade creation they put him in charge of their home video game console project, which would eventually become the Fairchild Channel F, the first ROM cartridge video game console.
In addition to being head of the Fairchild Channel F project and designing many of it’s prototyped components, Lawson and his team also worked on expanding the systems capabilities beyond just cartridge gaming.
One of the more unique variations of the Channel F technology that Lawson and his team put together was TV Pow, the first, and only video game played via broadcast television.
The long-overlooked importance of African-American engineer and innovator Gerald A. Lawson is the subject of A Great Day in Gaming: From Queens to Silicon Valley: The Gerald A. Lawson Story, a documentary screened in March to recognize Gerald’s legacy in the video gaming world.
(all information via Wikipedia, Classic Video Games-about.com, A Great Day in Gaming: From Queens to Silicon Valley: The Gerald A. Lawson Story)