Jerry Lawson: Google honors the father of modern gaming  

With today’s doodle

Today’s Google doodle on its homepage is dedicated to Gerald “Jerry” Lawson , one of the first African-Americans in the video game industry. As a computer engineer, Lawson started building electronic games from his home garage. In 1976 he ended up being part of the team that created the first video game cartridge, practically opening up the world of gaming to the general public.

At the time, game consoles were preloaded with a certain number of games. The cartridge created by Lawson brought about the revolution and defined the beginning of modern gaming, where the games that will be available to the user choose themselves.

Lawson even led the development of the Fairchild Channel F console, which featured an 8-way joystick of his own design, as well as a pause button which was the first of its kind. In 1980 he left Fairchild to found Videosoft, a video game development company that created the software for the legendary Atari 2600.

In 2011, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) recognized Lawson as an industry pioneer for his work on the concept of cartridge video games. Lawson died a month after receiving the award, from complications due to his diabetes.

You, by tapping on the doodle , can play a mini-interactive game with milestones in Lawson’s life, and then you can play various video games, create your own, or make changes to existing ones.