In late 2006, I received a large collection of vintage computer magazines from a friend. For days I sat on my office floor and thumbed through nearly every issue, finding page after page of priceless contemporary information. One day, while rapidly flipping through a 1983 issue of Popular Computing, I encountered a photo that stopped me dead in my tracks.
There I discovered, among a story on a new computer business, a picture of a black man. It might seem crazy, but after reading through hundreds of issues of dozens of publications spanning four decades, it was the first time I had ever seen a photograph of a black professional in a computer magazine. Frankly, it shocked me — not because a black man was there, but because I had never noticed his absence.
That discovery sent my mind spinning with questions, chiefly among them: Why are there so few African-Americans in the electronics industry? Honestly, I didn't know any black engineers or scientists to ask. I tried to track down the man in the magazine, but all my leads ended up nowhere. I'd have to put the matter aside and wait for another opportunity to address the issue.
Fast forward a few months later, and I'm standing on the showroom floor of Vintage Computer Festival 9.0. As I spend a few minutes thumbing through a vendor's large array of cartridges for sale, I hear a voice from behind.
"Do you have any Videosoft cartridges? Color Bar Generator?"
I turn around and notice a large black man in a wheelchair, hair graying at the edges. He seems out of place. I scan the crowd — yep, he's the only black guy here. Fascinating — what's his story? Instead of bumbling through a few impromptu questions and making a fool out of myself, I decide to research his identity first.
As it turns out, the man I encountered that day was Gerald A. Lawson(aka Jerry), creator of the world's first cartridge-based video game system, the Fairchild Channel F. Naturally, he was attending VCF 9 to give a presentation called, "The Story of the Fairchild Channel F Video Game System."
Being the only black man (I know of) who was deeply involved in the industry's earliest days, Jerry Lawson is a singular figure in video game and computer history. He's a self-taught electronics genius who, with incredible talents, audacity, and strong guidance from his parents, managed to end up at the top of his profession despite the cultural tides flowing against him.
Growing up in America, a land of endless diversity, we tend to fall into certain cultural grooves — well-defined paths of cultural history — that both unite and separate us. We get comfortable with those grooves and use them as the basis of our assumptions about behavior within certain age groups, socioeconomic classes, and ethnicities. Despite this ingrained cultural momentum, there are still rogue agents who manage to skip those grooves and chart their own course, damning any conventions that get in their way. Jerry Lawson is one of them, and he's got an important story to tell.
This interview took place on February 6th, 2009 over the telephone.
[Update (04/11/2011): Jerry Lawson passed away on April 9, 2011 at the age of 70.]
Jerry Lawson (1940-2011)
I am very saddened to announce the passing of a truly important figure in the history of video games. Jerry Lawson died Saturday morning, April 9th, 2011, at the age of 70.
Lawson was notable not only for being a rare African American electronic engineer in Silicon Valley, but also for leading the team that created the world's first ROM cartridge-based video game console. I speak, of course, of the Fairchild Channel F, which hit the market in August 1976.
Lawson did an interview for this site in 2009, and I am proud to say that the feature brought this amazing man some long overdue recognition. The IGDA honored Lawson's contributions to the industryduring an informal session at this year's Game Developer's Conference on March 4th, 2011.
I heard the news of Lawson's death only this afternoon from David Erhart, a personal friend of Lawson. Erhart tells me that he and Lawson were planning to go to a ham radio swap meet Saturday morning, but he received a call from Jerry's wife on Friday night telling him that Lawson was in the ICU. The next morning, his wife phoned Erhart again to say that Lawson had died.
The cause of death is unknown to me at the moment, but I do know that Lawson struggled with severe diabetes for years. An obituary for Jerry is in the works.
Rest in peace, Jerry. Thank you for all you've done for us. History will not forget your name.
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