Gerald “Jerry” Lawson died at the age of 70 this Saturday morning. He was the inventor of one of the very first consoles ever that predated the Atari and others alike, and it was called Channel F. Channel F only had 26 cartridges ever made, including Blackjack, Spacewar, and Bowling. He was originally told that video games based on cartridge systems was not possible, but according to him, when someone says something isn’t possible, he will try anyways. We should all remember that when playing our awesome consoles today, to pay this man some respect.
Edit: This article incorrectly displays Jerry Lawson as creating the first cartridge based videogame system however that does not take away from Mr. Lawson’s reputation and earned respect.
Ralph Baer created the very first cartridge based videogame system with Magnavox in 1972. It was called the Magnavox Odyssey.
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Written by: Eddie
- Contributing Editor
#1 by premiersoupir on April 15th, 2011 [ 16490 Points ]
Huh, fascinating. Thanks for sharing this @Eddie, and introducing me to a bit of video game history!
#2 by Anonymous on April 15th, 2011
That article is a bit wrong…. Ralph Baer is the inventor of the videogame console (“Brown Box” prototype, 1968), and him, along with Magnavox, created the first videogame console, with cartridges (Magnavox Odyssey, 1972). Preceeding that of Jerry Lawson.
#3 by Eddie on April 15th, 2011 [ 43928 Points ]
Thanks for the info Anonymous! Either way, this man was a pioneer.
#4 by pedrolabate on April 15th, 2011 [ 39949 Points ]
Shame I was just watching a documentary on discovery channel another day about video games and heard about him.
#5 by oly1kenobi on April 15th, 2011 [ 130828 Points ]
PONG FTW!
#6 by Markus on April 17th, 2011 [ 4322 Points ]
R.I.P
#7 by T0SH on April 17th, 2011 [ 796 Points ]
Sad to see him go. I actually played on a Magnavox Odyssey as a kid. Good times. Still have it actually … just need to find a way to hook it up again.
#8 by oly1kenobi on April 17th, 2011 [ 130828 Points ]
OMG I actually played on that at a friends house..
Tosh I’ll bet you can order the parts to hook it up, online, or maybe even at a radio shack
#9 by T0SH on April 18th, 2011 [ 796 Points ]
Ya, I think it’s just a small part I forget what it was.
#10 by Jason on April 19th, 2011 [ 27923 Points ]
bet that would fetch a pretty penny man