Video Game Console Pioneer Lawson Dies Aged 70

You've probably never heard of Gerald - Jerry - Lawson, but without him there would be a huge gap in your life. Mr Lawson worked at Fairchild Semiconductor and in 1976 he designed internals for the Fairchild Video Entertainment System A.K.A the Channel F.

He died on Saturday at the age of 70 in hospital in Mountain View, California.

This comes as a double-blow to his family as ThyBlackman site points out because, "On Friday the International Game Developers Association will honor Jerry Lawson for all he’s done to move the state of the art forward. The honor has been a long time coming."

The site points out that,"You see, Lawson, 70, is black. And while we often try to pretend that’s neither here nor there, the truth is it is here — and it was even more-so there, when Lawson arrived in the valley in 1968.

"Within a few years he was launching and running the new gaming division, where he developed the Fairchild Channel F, a console that allowed players to change out cartridges loaded with games like Video Black Jack, Maze, Cat and Mouse, Spitfire and Space War."

For its part, Wired points out that "Predating the release of Atari’s Video Computer System by a year, the Channel F was the first videogame machine that used interchangeable game cartridges, which Fairchild sold separately. Previous game machines like Atari’s Pong and the Magnavox Odyssey had all their games built into the hardware. Lawson’s pioneering design set the standard for the game consoles of today."

R.I.P. 'Gerry' Lawson - December 1940 – April 9, 2011.