Gerald Anderson Lawson, also kown as 'Jerry Lawson', was born December 1st 1940 and Died April 9th 2011(71 years old). He was an American electrical engineer who was famously known for his work in the field of video gaming. He was the founder of the Fairchild Channel F, the first video game console to use an ROM cartridge instead of having games built-in, and in 1982, Black Enterprize Magazine named him the "Father of the videogame cartridge". Jerry was from New York and he was one of the few African American engineers who worked in computing at the start of the video game period.
Jerry Lawson was born in Brooklyn, New York City on December 1st 1940. His father, Blanton Lawson, was a dockworker who had an interest in the field of science and his mother, Mannings Lawson, worked in the city and in the PTO (Parents-Teachers Organization) and he had one brother, Michael. His parents were very fond of education so they made sure he got a very good level of education and encouraged him to study in the field of science. When he was 13 living in Queens, New York, he acquired an amateur ham radio license and then built his own station at home with parts from local electronic stores that he bought with his own money. His inspiration came from the work of George Washington Carver, who motivated him to repair televisions before he enrolled into college. He attended both Queens College and City College of New York but did not complete a degree at either.
In the mid 1970s, Lawson supported in the creation of the FairChild Channel F as director of engineering and marketing, an at home entertainment machine that was produced in 1976 by Fairchild Semiconductor. Due to Lawsons work, this created the stepping stones for other big companies such as Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox in today's time. At his time at FairChild Channel F, racism was still a problem as most of his colleagues were shocked to find out that he was an African American working in the same field as them. On March 20th 2019, Lawson was presented with the ID@Xbox Gaming Heroes award by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) at the 21st Independent Games Festival for leading the development of the first cartridge-based game console. Lawson's work was put on display at the World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York to commemorate him.
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