Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, Brainstuff, Lauren
Speaker 1: vogelbam here. If you're a gamer of a certain age,
Speaker 1: you've probably got fond memories of popping in a new
Speaker 1: cartridge and settling in for a rousing session of Super
Speaker 1: Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog, and you've got the late
Speaker 1: Gerald or Jerry Lawson to thank for that nostalgia. Jerry
Speaker 1: Lawson was an engineer and game designer who helped develop
Speaker 1: Fairchild Channel F, which was the first ever cartridge based
Speaker 1: video game console released for commercial sale, and in helping
Speaker 1: create the Fairchild Channel F, Lawson helped lay the foundations
Speaker 1: for the entire gaming industry as we know it. For
Speaker 1: the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: spoke via email with BENJ. Edwards, a journalist and the
Speaker 1: editor in chief of Vintage Computing and Gaming. Edwards interviewed
Speaker 1: Lawson back in two thousand and nine after stumbling across
Speaker 1: the engineer's image in a nineteen eighty three computer magazine.
Speaker 1: Edwards said Jerry was a big name in Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies because people came to him for
Speaker 1: semiconductor chips from Fairchild. It's neat to know there was
Speaker 1: a black man in that position at the time, and
Speaker 1: you know, his story must have been amazing to get
Speaker 1: him there, and he did have an amazing story. Lawson
Speaker 1: was born in Queens, New York, in December of nineteen forty.
Speaker 1: He grew up with a fierce mother who ensured that
Speaker 1: her son received the best schooling possible, and a longshoreman
Speaker 1: father with an avid interest in science. It was under
Speaker 1: these influences that Lawson was able to cultivate his natural
Speaker 1: interest in engineering, tinkering with various electronics and even creating
Speaker 1: his own amateur radio station at the age of thirteen.
Speaker 1: He studied at Queen's College and City College of New York,
Speaker 1: but Lawson's engineering skills were largely self taught. He made
Speaker 1: his way to California's burgeoning Silicon Valley and eventually landed
Speaker 1: in nineth teen seventy at Fairchild, a semiconductor company, where
Speaker 1: he worked as a field engineer. One of the few
Speaker 1: black men in the industry at the time, Lawson also
Speaker 1: interacted through the home Brewing Computing Club with other people
Speaker 1: who would later become even more influential in the technology industry,
Speaker 1: such as Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, but it was
Speaker 1: while working at Fairchild that he met engineer Alan or
Speaker 1: al Alcorn, the father of Pong, as Lawson called him
Speaker 1: in a keynote speech at the Classic Gaming Expo in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. Alcorn designed and built the two
Speaker 1: dimensional tennis game Pong as employee number three for Atari Incorporated,
Speaker 1: a company that was a pioneer in arcade games. Released
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two, as one of the first commercial
Speaker 1: video games, Pong became a smash hit and catalyzed to industry.
Speaker 1: Al Korn met with Lawson while scouting for electronic parts
Speaker 1: for Pong. A Houstuff Works spoke with Alcorn back in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. He explained, I had a question about a
Speaker 1: certain part that Fairchild made. They sent out a field
Speaker 1: engineer to explain how their parts worked, and that was
Speaker 1: Jerry Lawson. Jerry helped me out and we became friends
Speaker 1: at that point. In a sense, Lawson and Alcorn were
Speaker 1: both friends and competitors in the same space, or frenemies,
Speaker 1: as Alcorn pleasantly recalled with a laugh. Lawson told a
Speaker 1: story at that keynote event about how he remembered hearing
Speaker 1: about a coin operated pong game being placed in a
Speaker 1: beer hall or pizza parlor in Sunnyvale, California, which local
Speaker 1: kids would shock with a wire, leading the game to
Speaker 1: drop all its coins for the kids to steal. This
Speaker 1: helped inspire the engineering behind Lawson's own coin operated video game,
Speaker 1: Demolition Derby, which possessed a coin defeat mode to prevent
Speaker 1: local kids from stealing coins from the game. Although al
Speaker 1: Korn didn't recall this specific story, he did remember Lawson
Speaker 1: mysteriously retreating into his work before re emerging with the
Speaker 1: fair Child Channel F home video game system. What happened
Speaker 1: is this, Lawson's superiors at Fairchild got wind of his
Speaker 1: side work on games, and they decided to secretly enlist
Speaker 1: his skills for their semiconductor company, which wanted to get
Speaker 1: into the game industry. How Stuff Works also spoke with
Speaker 1: one Jeremy Saucier via email in twenty twenty. He's the
Speaker 1: assistant and vice president for Electronic Games and Interpretation at
Speaker 1: the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. He
Speaker 1: said in early nineteen seventy six, following Lawson's valuation and recommendation,
Speaker 1: his employer Fairchild licensed prototype video game technology from Alpex
Speaker 1: Computer Corporation and tasked Lawson, one of the few black
Speaker 1: engineers working in Silicon Valley at the time, with developing
Speaker 1: it into a commercial product. The company wanted Lawson and
Speaker 1: the other Fairchild team members to quickly develop a console
Speaker 1: using their specific F eight microprocessor, and not just any console.
Speaker 1: The first commercial cartridge based home video game console the
Speaker 1: Fairchild Channel F, which debuted at the Chicago Consumer Electronics
Speaker 1: Show in June of nineteen seventy six. Lawson particularly contributed
Speaker 1: to the project by developing a prototype for the console's
Speaker 1: handheld controller, an eight way digital joystick that represented a
Speaker 1: major innovation in putting that microprocessor to use. Edwards said,
Speaker 1: Jerry Lawson didn't create the Channel F by himself, but
Speaker 1: he was instrumental in its creation. He was a project
Speaker 1: leader of sorts, pulling it together and also championing its development.
Speaker 1: He was one of a team of engineers that designed it.
Speaker 1: He worked on the electronic circuit design and played a
Speaker 1: big part in the mechanics of the hand controller design.
Speaker 1: Lawson was able to put his quick thinking skills to
Speaker 1: use to bypass significant engineering problems in the creation of
Speaker 1: the console. In that classic gaming Expo keynote, Lawson recalled
Speaker 1: having an epiphany in the middle of the night about
Speaker 1: a radiation signal issue that they were trying to fix.
Speaker 1: Called his team member. In the wi hours, they went
Speaker 1: back to the office working on a calculation. They wound
Speaker 1: up shortening the cord from the console to the hand
Speaker 1: controller by just a couple inches, which fixed the signal
Speaker 1: issue and allowed them to bypass the FCC, which had
Speaker 1: been blocking the approval of their product. Lawson was also tenacious.
Speaker 1: He sat in the FCC's lobby for three days until
Speaker 1: someone finally gave him approval for his product. Although the
Speaker 1: Channel F garnered some interest when it launched on the
Speaker 1: consumer market in the fall of nineteen seventy six, it
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly a smashing success, especially since the Atari Video
Speaker 1: computer system console also known as the Atari twenty six hundred,
Speaker 1: quickly dominated the industry when it hit shelves following year.
Speaker 1: It was developed by Alcorn and others at Atari. Alcorn
Speaker 1: said that the lack of commercial success for the Fairchild
Speaker 1: Channel F was due more to the semiconductor company's inexperience
Speaker 1: with video games, whereas Atari's bread and butter was games
Speaker 1: so they were better equipped to tackle the games market,
Speaker 1: but that innovative joystick lived on as a third party
Speaker 1: controller for the Atari. The Fairchild Channel F also introduced
Speaker 1: for the first time the pause mechanism to the video
Speaker 1: game world. Sascier said its most significant achievement was its
Speaker 1: use of interchangeable cartridges, which proved revolutionary the potential of
Speaker 1: playing dozens or even hundreds of individual games on a
Speaker 1: platform unlocked the possibility of selling tens of millions of games.
Speaker 1: After leaving Fairchild, Lawson continued to work as an engineer,
Speaker 1: even working with Alcorn from time to time. A Lawson
Speaker 1: founded the first black owned video game developing company, Videosoft Incorporated.
Speaker 1: He also fostered support for the next generation of black engineers.
Speaker 1: In his interview with Edwards, Lawson recalled a moving story
Speaker 1: in which a child recognized him on the Las Vegas
Speaker 1: Strip and shook his hand and thanked him. Edwards said,
Speaker 1: Jerry mentored engineering students Stanford in his older age, even
Speaker 1: when he was in relatively poor health. I think that
Speaker 1: he wanted to inspire the next generation to be great engineers.
Speaker 1: In twenty eleven, the International Game Developers Association honored Lawson
Speaker 1: for his work in moving the video game industry forward.
Speaker 1: He would pass away not long after, at the age
Speaker 1: of seventy from complications due to diabetes. However, his legacy
Speaker 1: lives on in the memories of those who knew him
Speaker 1: and the thriving gaming industry. Since twenty thirteen, the Strong
Speaker 1: Museum of Plays International Center for the History of Electronic
Speaker 1: Games has housed and displayed some of Lawson's personal papers
Speaker 1: and professional artifacts. He posthumously received the id at Xbox
Speaker 1: Gaming Heroes Award at the Game Developer's Choice Awards in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, and Google celebrated what would have been Lawson's
Speaker 1: eighty second birthday on December first of twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: by featuring him as the day's Google Doodle and heralding
Speaker 1: him as one of the fathers of modern gaming. How
Speaker 1: Stuffworks also spoke with Renee Gittens via email in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: who was then the executive director of the International Game
Speaker 1: Developers Association. She said, Jerry Lawson was undoubtedly one of
Speaker 1: the influential forces within our industry from the time he
Speaker 1: developed Demolition Derby onward, including his leadership of the Fairchild Channel.
Speaker 1: F's development. The invention of these cartridges influenced not only
Speaker 1: the console technology, but also the marketing, sales, and bred
Speaker 1: the video games made available. Without cartridges, the progress of
Speaker 1: the games industry would have been far slower and more limited.
Speaker 1: We are proud to recognize Jerry Lawson's accomplishments and influence,
Speaker 1: and it is uplifting that he remains an inspiration to
Speaker 1: this day. Today's episode is based on the article Jerry
Speaker 1: Lawson Forever Changed the Video Game Industry on HowStuffWorks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Tara Yarlagatta. A brain Stuff is production of
Speaker 1: by Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts on my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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