WEBVTT - How Did Jerry Lawson Change the Course of Video Gaming? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, Brainstuff, Lauren 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:12.120 vogelbam here. If you're a gamer of a certain age, 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.040 you've probably got fond memories of popping in a new 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.079 cartridge and settling in for a rousing session of Super 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.639 Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog, and you've got the late 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:26.639 Gerald or Jerry Lawson to thank for that nostalgia. Jerry 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.600 Lawson was an engineer and game designer who helped develop 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.320 Fairchild Channel F, which was the first ever cartridge based 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.960 video game console released for commercial sale, and in helping 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.760 create the Fairchild Channel F, Lawson helped lay the foundations 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:46.640 for the entire gaming industry as we know it. For 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.200 the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works, 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.320 spoke via email with BENJ. Edwards, a journalist and the 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.360 editor in chief of Vintage Computing and Gaming. Edwards interviewed 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.400 Lawson back in two thousand and nine after stumbling across 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.480 the engineer's image in a nineteen eighty three computer magazine. 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.920 Edwards said Jerry was a big name in Silicon Valley 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.520 in the nineteen seventies because people came to him for 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.960 semiconductor chips from Fairchild. It's neat to know there was 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.240 a black man in that position at the time, and 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.360 you know, his story must have been amazing to get 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:23.160 him there, and he did have an amazing story. Lawson 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.319 was born in Queens, New York, in December of nineteen forty. 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:29.200 He grew up with a fierce mother who ensured that 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.520 her son received the best schooling possible, and a longshoreman 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:36.600 father with an avid interest in science. It was under 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.000 these influences that Lawson was able to cultivate his natural 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:44.240 interest in engineering, tinkering with various electronics and even creating 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.760 his own amateur radio station at the age of thirteen. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.880 He studied at Queen's College and City College of New York, 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:55.880 but Lawson's engineering skills were largely self taught. He made 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.560 his way to California's burgeoning Silicon Valley and eventually landed 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.280 in nineth teen seventy at Fairchild, a semiconductor company, where 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.559 he worked as a field engineer. One of the few 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.160 black men in the industry at the time, Lawson also 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.240 interacted through the home Brewing Computing Club with other people 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.760 who would later become even more influential in the technology industry, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.000 such as Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, but it was 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.040 while working at Fairchild that he met engineer Alan or 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.080 al Alcorn, the father of Pong, as Lawson called him 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.480 in a keynote speech at the Classic Gaming Expo in 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.600 two thousand and five. Alcorn designed and built the two 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:38.280 dimensional tennis game Pong as employee number three for Atari Incorporated, 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.640 a company that was a pioneer in arcade games. Released 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.160 in nineteen seventy two, as one of the first commercial 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:49.200 video games, Pong became a smash hit and catalyzed to industry. 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.240 Al Korn met with Lawson while scouting for electronic parts 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.840 for Pong. A Houstuff Works spoke with Alcorn back in 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.680 twenty twenty. He explained, I had a question about a 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.639 certain part that Fairchild made. They sent out a field 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.320 engineer to explain how their parts worked, and that was 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.600 Jerry Lawson. Jerry helped me out and we became friends 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.960 at that point. In a sense, Lawson and Alcorn were 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:17.680 both friends and competitors in the same space, or frenemies, 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:22.560 as Alcorn pleasantly recalled with a laugh. Lawson told a 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.840 story at that keynote event about how he remembered hearing 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.360 about a coin operated pong game being placed in a 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.200 beer hall or pizza parlor in Sunnyvale, California, which local 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:34.920 kids would shock with a wire, leading the game to 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.640 drop all its coins for the kids to steal. This 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.320 helped inspire the engineering behind Lawson's own coin operated video game, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.160 Demolition Derby, which possessed a coin defeat mode to prevent 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.960 local kids from stealing coins from the game. Although al 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.800 Korn didn't recall this specific story, he did remember Lawson 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.240 mysteriously retreating into his work before re emerging with the 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.680 fair Child Channel F home video game system. What happened 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.440 is this, Lawson's superiors at Fairchild got wind of his 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.920 side work on games, and they decided to secretly enlist 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.040 his skills for their semiconductor company, which wanted to get 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.560 into the game industry. How Stuff Works also spoke with 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.120 one Jeremy Saucier via email in twenty twenty. He's the 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:23.560 assistant and vice president for Electronic Games and Interpretation at 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.240 the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. He 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:32.200 said in early nineteen seventy six, following Lawson's valuation and recommendation, 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.880 his employer Fairchild licensed prototype video game technology from Alpex 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.200 Computer Corporation and tasked Lawson, one of the few black 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.400 engineers working in Silicon Valley at the time, with developing 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:48.080 it into a commercial product. The company wanted Lawson and 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.560 the other Fairchild team members to quickly develop a console 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:56.680 using their specific F eight microprocessor, and not just any console. 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.919 The first commercial cartridge based home video game console the 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:05.040 Fairchild Channel F, which debuted at the Chicago Consumer Electronics 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:10.000 Show in June of nineteen seventy six. Lawson particularly contributed 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.640 to the project by developing a prototype for the console's 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.919 handheld controller, an eight way digital joystick that represented a 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:21.840 major innovation in putting that microprocessor to use. Edwards said, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.320 Jerry Lawson didn't create the Channel F by himself, but 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.680 he was instrumental in its creation. He was a project 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.400 leader of sorts, pulling it together and also championing its development. 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.440 He was one of a team of engineers that designed it. 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.520 He worked on the electronic circuit design and played a 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.120 big part in the mechanics of the hand controller design. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.560 Lawson was able to put his quick thinking skills to 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:49.000 use to bypass significant engineering problems in the creation of 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.679 the console. In that classic gaming Expo keynote, Lawson recalled 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.200 having an epiphany in the middle of the night about 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:58.719 a radiation signal issue that they were trying to fix. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.280 Called his team member. In the wi hours, they went 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.800 back to the office working on a calculation. They wound 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.159 up shortening the cord from the console to the hand 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.200 controller by just a couple inches, which fixed the signal 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.280 issue and allowed them to bypass the FCC, which had 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:19.039 been blocking the approval of their product. Lawson was also tenacious. 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.040 He sat in the FCC's lobby for three days until 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.560 someone finally gave him approval for his product. Although the 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.240 Channel F garnered some interest when it launched on the 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.960 consumer market in the fall of nineteen seventy six, it 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:36.359 wasn't exactly a smashing success, especially since the Atari Video 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.560 computer system console also known as the Atari twenty six hundred, 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.960 quickly dominated the industry when it hit shelves following year. 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:48.000 It was developed by Alcorn and others at Atari. Alcorn 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.600 said that the lack of commercial success for the Fairchild 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.400 Channel F was due more to the semiconductor company's inexperience 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.640 with video games, whereas Atari's bread and butter was games 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.880 so they were better equipped to tackle the games market, 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.119 but that innovative joystick lived on as a third party 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:10.040 controller for the Atari. The Fairchild Channel F also introduced 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.000 for the first time the pause mechanism to the video 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:17.840 game world. Sascier said its most significant achievement was its 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:22.240 use of interchangeable cartridges, which proved revolutionary the potential of 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.160 playing dozens or even hundreds of individual games on a 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:29.360 platform unlocked the possibility of selling tens of millions of games. 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.800 After leaving Fairchild, Lawson continued to work as an engineer, 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.840 even working with Alcorn from time to time. A Lawson 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.840 founded the first black owned video game developing company, Videosoft Incorporated. 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.880 He also fostered support for the next generation of black engineers. 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.240 In his interview with Edwards, Lawson recalled a moving story 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.520 in which a child recognized him on the Las Vegas 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.680 Strip and shook his hand and thanked him. Edwards said, 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.080 Jerry mentored engineering students Stanford in his older age, even 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.120 when he was in relatively poor health. I think that 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:09.000 he wanted to inspire the next generation to be great engineers. 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.600 In twenty eleven, the International Game Developers Association honored Lawson 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.160 for his work in moving the video game industry forward. 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.400 He would pass away not long after, at the age 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:25.280 of seventy from complications due to diabetes. However, his legacy 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.600 lives on in the memories of those who knew him 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:32.720 and the thriving gaming industry. Since twenty thirteen, the Strong 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.760 Museum of Plays International Center for the History of Electronic 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.120 Games has housed and displayed some of Lawson's personal papers 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:44.240 and professional artifacts. He posthumously received the id at Xbox 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.200 Gaming Heroes Award at the Game Developer's Choice Awards in 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.680 twenty nineteen, and Google celebrated what would have been Lawson's 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.800 eighty second birthday on December first of twenty twenty two 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:56.960 by featuring him as the day's Google Doodle and heralding 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.360 him as one of the fathers of modern gaming. How 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.000 Stuffworks also spoke with Renee Gittens via email in twenty twenty, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.000 who was then the executive director of the International Game 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:13.520 Developers Association. She said, Jerry Lawson was undoubtedly one of 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.360 the influential forces within our industry from the time he 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.520 developed Demolition Derby onward, including his leadership of the Fairchild Channel. 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.640 F's development. The invention of these cartridges influenced not only 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.280 the console technology, but also the marketing, sales, and bred 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.480 the video games made available. Without cartridges, the progress of 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.199 the games industry would have been far slower and more limited. 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.600 We are proud to recognize Jerry Lawson's accomplishments and influence, 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.840 and it is uplifting that he remains an inspiration to 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:50.480 this day. Today's episode is based on the article Jerry 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.120 Lawson Forever Changed the Video Game Industry on HowStuffWorks dot Com, 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.240 written by Tara Yarlagatta. A brain Stuff is production of 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:59.719 by Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.240 produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts on my heart Radio, 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.640 visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:07.679 to your favorite shows.