Video gaming pioneer Gerald Lawson has died from complications related to diabetes. He was 70 years old.

In 1976, Lawson designed the Fairchild Channel F, the first programmable ROM cartridge-based video game console. He went on to create software for the Atari 2600 in the early 80s.
 

Lawson was the sole black member of the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of early computer hobbyists which would produce a number of industry legends, including Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Lawson also produced one of the earliest arcade games, Demolition Derby, which debuted in a southern California pizzeria shortly after Pong.”

In a 2009 interview, Lawson was candid in his appraisal of Jobs and Wozniak: “I was not impressed with them — either one of them, actually.” He was so unimpressed by Wozniak he turned down his application for a job at Fairchild.

In March, Mr. Lawson was honored for his innovative work by the International Game Developers Association, an overdue acknowledgment for an unfamiliar contributor to the technological transformation that has changed how people live.

“He’s absolutely a pioneer,” Allan Alcorn, a creator of the granddaddy of video games, Pong, said in an interview with The San Jose Mercury News in March. “When you do something for the first time, there is nothing to copy.”

 
Here’s Mr. Lawson discussing Fairchild Channel F and the roots of virtual reality: