Creator of the Video Game Cartridge Has Died. Salute.

Jerry Lawson passed away. This is the man who helped create the video game cartridge, and if this isn’t enough to make him awesome in your eyes, I shame you! With thumbs bitten and farts in your direction!

Kotaku:

Jerry Lawson, the engineer that lead the Fairchild Channel F development team, has died, reports Vintage Computing and Gaming. The Fairchild Channel F became the first cartridge-based video game console when it was released in 1976 and Lawson was instrumental in its design.

[Lawson] joined Fairchild Semiconductor in 1970, going on to lead the company’s video game division. Fairchild launched the Channel F in 1976 under its original name, Fairchild Video Entertainment System, to initial success.

“The whole reason I did games was because people said, ‘You can’t do it,’ ” Lawson told the Mercury News in a profile earlier this year. “I’m one of the guys, if you tell me I can’t do something, I’ll turn around and do it.”

As someone who was raised on both the glory of gaming via cartridges, Lawson had a huge hand in my childhood. Didn’t even know the guy’s name.

So it goes.