How one Black engineer shaped the gaming industry 一位黑人工程师如何塑造了游戏产业
Looking back through the history of video games is always a wild experience. Did you know that Lara Croft’s first in-game model only had 230 polygons? For reference, nowadays player characters can easily exceed 30,000 – not that polygons should be a measure of beauty! Technically, the Enderman is a collection of rectangular blocks and yet it still managed to infiltrate my nightmares.
回顾电子游戏的历史总是会让人感慨万千。你知道劳拉·克劳馥（译注：动作冒险游戏《古墓丽影（Tomb Raider）》系列的女主角）的第一个游戏内模型只有230面吗？作为参考，今天的玩家角色会轻易地超过三万面，这并不是说面数是决定美的度量！从技术角度来说，末影人是由一系列的长方体组成的，然而它还是能设法潜入我的噩梦之中。 Obviously, this exponential technical progress was only possible thanks to a lot of hard work and talent – and one person that brought a significant contribution to the gaming industry was Gerald Anderson Lawson, also known as Jerry Lawson. He was an American electronic engineer who pioneered some literally game-changing innovations.
显然，这种指数型的科技进步之所以能成为可能，需要归功于大量的辛勤工作和天赋——而杰拉德·安德森·劳森就是一个为游戏产业带来显著的贡献的人，他也被称为杰瑞劳森。作为一名美籍电子工程师，他开创了一些真正地改变了游戏行业的革新。
Born on December 1, 1940, Jerry Lawson had always been interested in science and technology, especially ham radio and chemistry. As a teenager, he earned money by repairing TVs and then bought parts to build his own ham radio station at home. Early in his career, he joined Fairchild Semiconductor and created a coin-operated arcade called Demolition Derby game using their F8 microprocessor – whereas I needed two separate crash courses just to understand the control panel on our Dungeons Arcade . Demolition Derby was actually one of the earliest microprocessor-driven game systems.
出生于1940年12月1日的杰瑞劳森一直对科学和技术感兴趣，特别是无线电台和化学。在年轻的时候，他通过修电脑来赚钱，并购买零件以组装他自己的业余无线电台。在他职业生涯的早期，他加入了仙童半导体公司并设计了一个使用他们的F8微处理器，名为《Demolition Derby》（可译为破坏德比？其中德比或指两只同城的球队之间的比赛。未找到官方译名）的投币式街机游戏——相比而言我仅仅为了理解我们的《我的世界：地下城》的操作面板就需要两个不同的速成班。《Demolition Derby》事实上是最早的微处理器驱动的游戏系统之一。
In the mid-1970s, after being promoted to Chief Hardware Engineer and Director of Engineering and Marketing of Fairchild's video game division, he led the development of the Fairchild Channel F console. Released in 1976, the Channel F was very special because unlike most game systems at the time, it used swappable game cartridges, based on technology licensed from a company called Alpex, which Lawson’s team then refined. Most consoles at the time had the game programming built into their hardware, which meant that you were stuck with whatever games it came with. Pretty crazy to think about it in the age of digital downloads and game subscription services like Game Pass, PS Now, or Taking My Sibling's Device While They Sleep.
The Fairchild Channel F allowed players to build their own game library, while also creating a new source of income for companies, enabling them to not only sell the consoles themselves but also a variety of games. For this device, Jerry Lawson also designed a new 8-way joystick, as well as a first for home video consoles: a dedicated pause button, which is something I’m extra appreciative of as an easily overwhelmed gamer. I couldn’t imagine not being able to pause whenever I hear the hissing of an approaching creeper – not that it’s much help, but it gives me the illusion of safety.
仙童Channel F让玩家得以建立他们自己的游戏库，同时也给公司带来了一个新的收入来源，使得他们不仅能卖游戏机，还能卖各种游戏。对于这个设备，杰瑞劳森还设计了一个8向操作杆，这也是家用游戏机中的首创：一个专用的暂停按钮，这是我这个很容易不知所措的玩家特别欣赏的一点。我无法想象听到苦力怕的嘶嘶声而无法暂停的情况——并不是说这有多大帮助，但至少它能给我一种安全的幻觉。 Sadly, despite its many innovations, the Fairchild Channel F was not commercially successful. Cartridge-based systems were later popularized by the Atari 2600, which was released in 1977 and displaced it as the top console on the market. Jerry Lawson moved on to found Videosoft in 1980, a company that made software for the Atari 2600. Around five years later, he closed the company and started consulting work, and later even collaborated with the Stanford mentor program.
令人伤心的是，尽管它有很多创新，仙童Channel F在商业上并不成功。基于卡带的系统随后被雅达利2600发扬光大，它在1977年发布并取代了（仙童Channel F）的市场上最畅销游戏机的地位。杰瑞劳森接着创立了Videosoft公司，一个为雅达利2600制作软件的公司。大约5年后，他关闭了公司并开始了咨询工作，之后他甚至与斯坦福大学的顾问项目合作。
Jerry Lawson’s work in pioneering the commercial video game cartridge did receive some recognition, although a lot of it only came in relatively recent years. In 1982, Black Enterprise magazine dubbed him "father of the videogame cartridge". In 2011, he was honored as an industry pioneer for his work on the same concept by the International Game Developers Association. And in 2019, he received the ID@Xbox Gaming Heroes award at the 21st Independent Games Festival. If you’re passing through or live in Rochester, New York, you can also visit the permanent display of Jerry Lawson’s contribution to the video game industry at The World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play.
杰瑞劳森在商用游戏机卡带上的开拓性工作确实获得了一些赞誉，尽管其中的大部分只是近些年来获得的。在1982年，《Black Enterprise》（黑人企业家杂志，无官方译名）杂志称他为“电子游戏卡带之父”。在2011年，他因为相同概念上的工作而被国际游戏开发者协会授予行业先锋的称号。在2019年，他在21世纪独立游戏节上获得了Xbox游戏英雄奖。如果你经过或者住在罗切斯特，纽约，你也可以参观斯特朗玩乐博物馆中的世界电子游戏名人堂，那里永久展示了杰瑞劳森对电子游戏产业的贡献。
Jerry Lawson passed away in April 2011, but his work changed the video game industry forever, starting from before many of us were even born, let alone played Minecraft. If you’re interested in learning more, he was also featured in quite a few documentaries in recent years.
杰瑞劳森逝世于2011年4月，但是他的工作永远地改变了电子游戏产业，这开始于我们中的很多人出生之前，更别提玩minecraft了。如果你想了解更多，他也在近年不少的纪实节目中被提到了。
Of course, there are many examples of Black excellence in gaming that have gone unrecognized in the past decades. During Black History Month and beyond, let’s try to learn about even more Black figures that advanced the gaming industry, and take a moment to appreciate their legacy.
当然，在过去的几十年中有许多关于游戏产业中的优秀黑人被埋没的例子。在黑人历史月和这以外，让我们试着去了解更多推动游戏产业进步的黑人人物，并花一些时间去欣赏他们的传奇经历。
*Image by Unknown, but currently held by Museum of Play / Estate of Jerry Lawson - Original publication: Hilliard, S. Lee (December 1982). "Cash in on the Videogame Craze: Career opportunities are wide open in this booming multi-billion dollar industry". Black Enterprise. Vol. 12, no. 5. Earl G. Graves, Ltd. pp. 41–6. ISSN 0006-4165.
*图片出处未知，但目前为玩具博物馆/ 杰瑞罗森的遗产 - 原文发表于：Hilliard, S. Lee (December 1982). "Cash in on the Videogame Craze: Career opportunities are wide open in this booming multi-billion dollar industry". Black Enterprise. Vol. 12, no. 5. Earl G. Graves, Ltd. pp. 41–6. ISSN 0006-4165.
发表于 2022-8-10 22:37:17
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