Jerry Lawson

Dorktales Podcast: Episode 48

Hidden Heroes of History

Jerry Lawson

An epic quest to uncover an early video game pioneer! As a teen, Jerry Lawson was a self-taught electronics wiz—building ham radios, making walkie-talkies from scratch, and repairing his neighbor’s TVs. His love of new technologies brought him to California where he became one of the only Black engineers in Silicon Valley. While there, he changed the course of the video game industry with his revolutionary invention—the Channel F game console with interchangeable cartridges. Today, his legacy is paving the way for a new generation of inventive engineers!

Did You Know?

Gerald “Jerry” Lawson was an electronic engineer who pioneered the first video game console with interchangeable games.

Electronic engineering is a branch of engineering that deals with the design, creation, and operation of electronic devices and systems, like music players, GPS devices, and game consoles.

Jerry Lawson was raised in Queens, a borough in New York City. He had parents who fostered his favorite scientific hobbies including ham radio and chemistry. Ham radio is for radio enthusiasts who use frequencies to send messages, perform experiments and take part in self-training.

At the age of 13, he earned an amateur ham radio license and then built his own station at home with parts that he bought from local electronic stores. He was also making walkie-talkies from scratch and selling them to neighborhood kids. And throughout his teen years, he would make house calls to repair his neighbors’ TVs. He grew to become a self-taught engineer.

In 1968, Mr. Lawson and his wife moved to Silicon Valley to be in the place where new technologies were being founded. Silicon Valley is located in San Jose, California, and is where many technology companies like Apple and Google were started. Mr. Lawson soon became part of the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of early computer hobbyists including the soon-to-be-famous Apple founders, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.

In 1970, Mr. Lawson was hired by a company called Fairchild Camera and Instrument (Fairchild) as an engineering consultant. Fairchild was a company known for various new technologies, like flash photography equipment. In his spare time, Mr. Lawson would work in his makeshift lab in his garage where he built “Demolition Derby” – an arcade game inspired by Pong. His employers at Fairchild heard the news of his Demolition Derby creation, promoted him, and asked him to create a video game console for the company.

In 1976, Mr. Lawson created a product known as Channel F, the first console to use interchangeable cartridges. This meant you could play entire collections of games on the console. Before Channel F,  all consoles would come with only one or just a few preset games. Mr. Lawson’s console was a revolutionary invention!

Sadly, Mr. Lawson’s Channel F console got lost in history. When Atari – a much larger electronics company – took notice, they created and released their own console. Atari was already a popular company with a well-known roster of games, and sold millions more consoles than Fairchild. The Channel F was eventually discontinued, but still served as the foundation for all future consoles.

Jerry Lawson’s legacy lives on.

Mr. Lawson was one of the only Black engineers to work in Silicon Valley at the time. He paved the way for others to come after him, and various honors and awards were created in his name. This has been vitally important for an industry that still suffers from unequal representation.

He was honored as an industry pioneer for his work on the game cartridge concept by the International Game Developers Association. And the school, USC Games, created the Gerald A. Lawson Endowment Fund for Black and Indigenous Students. The award was established to educate and train more Game Developers from two demographic groups that have been under-represented in the game industry.

Jerry Lawson’s work changed the course of an entire industry and made the creation of video game systems we use today, like PlayStation and Xbox, possible.

Learn More!

Learn even more about Jerry Lawson from these great resources:

• Raising the Game by Anthony Frasier: Podcaster Anthony Frasier dives deep into the mystery of Jerry Lawson’s untold story in this Audible Audiobook.

• Video Games on the Past and the Curious Podcast: Mick Sullivan takes you into the early days of video games to talk about Ralph Baer’s first home video game console and Jerry Lawson, the engineer who built on Baer’s creation to create the first video game cartridge and console.