“The whole reason I did games was because people said, ‘You can’t do it. ‘ I’m one of the guys, if you tell me I can’t do something, I’ll turn around and do it.”
Jerry Lawson
Jerry Lawson brought interchangeable video games into people’s homes with the invention of the Fairchild Channel F, the precursor to modern video game systems. Lawson was one of the few African-American engineers who worked in computing at the dawn of the video game era.
Lawson was born in New York City on December 1, 1940. While growing up in the projects of Queens, Lawson got a start on his lifelong tinkering. His interest in computing led him in the 1970s to Silicon Valley’s Homebrew Computer Club. In the mid-1970s, Lawson helped create the Fairchild Channel F, a home entertainment machine that is also the predecessor of most of the video game consoles we see today. Prior to the Channel F, games were built directly into their hardware — there was no swapping them out to play something else — and few believed that you could even give a console a microprocessor of its own. Lawson’s invention set the standard for how video games were played for the next 30 years. Lawson’s work allowed people to play a variety of games in their homes and paved the way for systems such as the Nintendo, Xbox, and Playstation.
From Lawson’s experience, we know that the forward-looking new products designed by designers will not only affect the behavior of consumers and users but also change an entire market with a butterfly effect. Lawson’s design brought huge changes to future production and players in the game industry. Players now prefer to play video games at home instead of going to the arcade. And this behavior pattern will continue to affect the next generation of game developers. The design center of game designers gradually tends to enhance the personal play experience. None of us knows what will bring about a huge change to the gaming world next time. But there is no doubt that Lawson’s design attitude is worth learning and thinking about. Before making, believe that you can make different things and work hard to put them into action, and all that is the best start.
Citations
https://www.biography.com/inventor/jerry-lawson
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/big-thinkers/jerry-lawson.htm
The quotes you included are very effective. Nice work!
I like how he said “I’m one of the guys, if you tell me I can’t do something, I’ll turn around and do it.” Lawson really has the right learning attitude.
very inspiring quote from him. I like your idea that designers can create butterfly effect to the world with their designs.