Gerald “Jerry” Lawson

The video game industry is defined by both creative and technical advancements. In the early 1970s, gaming was inaccessible to the wider public — to play a new game, you needed an entirely new console. That changed when engineer Gerald “Jerry” Lawson (1940-2011) developed the first removable gaming card system.

In 1976, he and a team of engineers created Fairchild Channel F, which predated the Atari game system. This revolutionary work allowed developers to create multiple games for a single console, and made it easier for consumers to purchase new games.

After transforming the gaming market, Lawson founded one of the first Black-owned video game companies in 1982. At VideoSoft, he created innovative game designs, such as a 3D video game. In the 1990s, he mentored students at Stanford University, and later became a role model for aspiring Black video game programmers.

Known today as the “father of modern gaming,” Lawson was recognized for his innovative contributions to engineering and gaming by the International Game Developers Association in 2011.

“You’ve gotta step away from the crowd and go do your own thing. You find a ground, cover it, it’s brand new, you’re on your own — you’re an explorer. That’s about what it’s going to be like,” Lawson shared as advice with Vintage Computing and Gaming in 2006. “Explore new vistas, new avenues, new ways — not relying on everyone else’s way to tell you which way to go, and how to go, and what you should be doing.”