Jerry Lawson - first black video game ...

In a time when the computer and video games industry was busy with mostly white men Jerry Lawson an innovator. Was the first cartridge video game based (on the Fairchild Channel F), design and one of the first coin op games (Demolition Derby) and was president of the Video Soft developer-independent early Atari 2600, and the first African American in the video game industry to achieve these benefits.

Name: Jerry Lawson
Birth: 1940
Mark in the history of the Games: engineer first black video game designer was responsible for the Fairchild Channel F video game console, designed and produced for the arcade game Demolition Derby, President of game developer Video Soft.

Early years of life:

Growing up the son of a family of low-income housing project in Jamaica, New York never a young Jerry Lawson. His mother decides to make sure that his son went to great schools available and received the best education. During prime PTA His father, a long tank top, and apatite ravenous for Science and Technology, which was passed to his son.

In young Jerry was already techhead incurable and witty, and access to amateur radio license and use it to build their own amateur radio station in his bedroom, as well as the manufacture and sale of wireless equipment.

His method Fairchild engineer:

After attending Queens College and the City College of New York, he began a career as an engineer Lawson, and work in the field of new technologies with companies such as Federal Electric, Grumman Aircraft and Dibba-mail. Finally, at Fairchild Semiconductor, he landed in 1970 in cooperation with semiconductors and processors completely online.

During his early years in Fairchild, participants with more computer technology Jerry, his interests became, and joined the Computer Club beer and honestly founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell and Ted DBNA and engineer behind Pong, Alan Alcorn.

Fairchild Channel F - from the game Trail Blazers video:

Ted Nolan showed and Jerry foundation, computer room, the first commercially available coin op arcade game, and then Jerry began tinkering at home, designing and building his own machine currency streets, demolition derby, using processors Fairchild.

If the execs at Fairchild learned of his establishment streets and responsible for the game and their project home video unit, the Fairchild Channel F, the first cartridge ROM video games was made.

TV Prisoner of War:

In addition to the President of the Fairchild Channel F and the design of many of the components of the model, also worked for Lawson and his team to expand the capabilities of the system more than just the game cartridge.

One of the most outstanding of the channel F Lawson and technology variables was played by the television show his bathroom TV prisoner of war, the first and only video game.

Depending on the local children between the charges, the host views the players in the TV-Pow that a shooter running Channel F room shall participate with the aim of large scale was in the middle. As the enemy ships flew over the area to shout the player "prisoners" to shoot and hit the target.

Fairchild Channel F by:

After leaving Fairchild, the Lawson's developers video game, Video Soft to create intentions, games and tools of high technology for the Atari 2600 ended the creation of a cartridge VideoSoft a "color bar generator", which is designed to calibrate the color of your TV , and set the horizontal and vertical line.

Lawson now has a well-deserved retirement and visit exhibitions and congresses of retro games as guest speaker.

In an industry that has seen little of minority professionals, while it is still too early, it may well be Lawson's first black video game designer, producer and engineer in the industry. Since the beginning of his career so far, he is amused when he met many people who have heard of it, but to meet him personally shocked by the fact that he is black. As mentioned in an interview in 2009 with Benj Edwards site for vintage computers and games, "Well, I do not want everyone that I'm black to tell. I just do my job, you know?"