How did Jerry Lawson change the world?

Electronic engineer Gerald Anderson Lawson was from the United States. He is well known for creating the Fairchild Channel F video game system and led the team that invented the commercial video game cartridge.

Lawson began experiencing diabetes issues in 2003, losing the use of one leg and vision in one eye.

On April 9, 2011, he died of diabetic complications, just one month after being honored by the IGDA.

He lived in Santa Clara, California, at the time of his death, and was survived by his wife, two children, and brother.

How did Jerry Lawson change the world?

He is renowned for leading the group that invented the commercial video game cartridge and for designing the Fairchild Channel F video game console.

Black Enterprise magazine referred to him as the “father of the videogame cartridge” in 1982.

Lawson participated in the design of the Fairchild Channel F system, the first video game console with a pause menu, an eight-way digital joystick, and interchangeable game cartridges. It became available in 1976.