Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Jerry Lawson, the ‘father of the video game cartridge’

The life and accomplishments of video game pioneer Gerald "Jerry" Lawson would have been celebrated on his birthday. You can play five retro platformers in your browser, with two of them allowing you to play as a fictional character. The creators of the Doodles want to inspire young people to follow in his footsteps, and they have a built-in level editor and creator to help them along the way.

The director of engineering and marketing at Fairchild Semiconductor was known as the "Father of the video game cartridge." The company released a home console in 1976. The Channel F was the first system with games that could be changed into new ones. Users were able to build entire libraries instead of playing a single game.

Games from guest artists and game designers are included in today's doodle. The concept begins with the player. Part of Jerry's journey that led to the creation of the cartridge is told in this anecdote. Once you have completed the level, you will be able to create your own game with an editor that will allow you to rethink the level design and make it better.

The first console with a pause menu was the Channel F. It wasn't a commercial success but Channel F's innovations influenced later systems that dominated home gaming over the following decades. The Nintendo Switch, the top-selling console, still uses a form of cartridges.

As an African-Amercan man in a field that was not known for being racially diverse, he faced a lot of challenges. Some people were surprised when they saw him for the first time as an engineer, he said. He was the only black member of the club. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were part of this group.

VideoSoft was one of the first Black-owned video game development firms when it was founded in 1980. After VideoSoft closed five years later, he consulted with engineering and video game companies for the remainder of his career. He died from diabetes-related problems at 70.

The son of Jerry said he hoped people would be inspired to be imaginative when they played the game. I hope that there is a child somewhere that wants to be a game developer. Hearing about my father's story makes them believe they can.