(credit: The Strong Museum of Play)
You've gotta step away from the crowd and go do your own thing. You find a ground, cover it, it's brand new, you're on your own—you're an explorer. That's about what it's going to be like. Explore new vistas, new avenues, new ways—not relying on everyone else's way to tell you which way to go, and how to go, and what you should be doing.
—Jerry Lawson, from an interview with Vintage Computing and Gaming in 2009
Though you may not know his name, Jerry Lawson helped lay the groundwork for all modern gaming consoles. As chief hardware engineer for Fairchild Semiconductor’s game division in the 1970s, Lawson was largely responsible for the Fairchild Channel F—the first console to include its own microchip and the first to use cartridges.
Lawson was also black. And as this Black History Month winds down, it’s worth reflecting on his achievements because Lawson succeeded in Silicon Valley at a time when opportunities for black engineers and inventors were severely limited (even more so than today). As The New York Times once put it, “He was among only a handful of black engineers in the world of electronics in general and electronic gaming in particular.”
Early days
Jerry Lawson was born on December 1, 1940 and grew up in the Jamaica, Queens area of New York City. His father was a longshoreman who loved to read science books; his mother was passionately committed to ensuring her son received a good public school education. She went so far as to visit schools to interview the principal and teachers. If she didn’t like what she heard, her son was going to a different school.
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