Google dedicated a special Google Doodle to a black pioneer within the video game industry on Thursday. Gerald Anderson Lawson was an American electric engineer renowned for his leadership in the development of the first modern game cartridges. While his efforts within gaming history were pushed out of the spotlight due to the crash in the Video game market, in the last few years Lawson’s work has been recognized. Firstly, by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) in 2011, the World Video Game Hall of Fame in New York, and received the Xbox Gaming Heroes award at the 21st Independent Games Festival in 2019.
Thursday’s Google Doodle is yet another powerful and recent effort in acknowledging his important work in the form of interactive games designed by three POC artists: Lauren Brown, Davionne Gooden, and Momo Pixel. The games start as a short playable journey throughout Lawson’s career in a tutorial phase. Eventually, users can select more games to play, each with their own unique play style and editable features. Players can even re-imagine each game’s design and create their own games.
As part of Lawson’s tribute, Google produced a short video highlighting his career, the development of the Google Doodle, as well as how his son, software developer Anderson Lawson, viewed his father’s life and legacy.
Lawson was part of the team responsible for the Fairchild Channel F system, the first video game system console that used interchangeable game cartridges, an eight-way digital joystick and a pause menu. The Fairchild Channel F system released back in 1976. “He was creating a coin-operated video game using the Fairchild microprocessor, which later with a team of people led to the creation of the gaming cartridge and the channel F system,” Anderson Lawson said. The “F” stood for “Fun.”
Lawson then went on to start his own company called ViedoSoft in 1980. It was one of the first black-owned video game development companies in the industry. VideoSoft created games for the Atari 2600, which helped popularize the interchangeable cartridge system that Lawson’s Fairchild team created. He was a consultant for engineering and video game companies until his death at age 70.
“When people play this Doodle, I hope they’re inspired to be imaginative,” said Anderson. “And I hope that some little kid somewhere that looks like me and wants to get into game development, hearing about my father’s story makes them feel like they can.”
To those that wish to learn more about Lawson, start here, the Lawson Doodle is still playable on Google’s homepage.