A few highlights: Black engineer in Silicon Valley. In 1970. Demolition Derby released months after Pong. Fairchild Channel F console had programmable cartidges and real game AI. Want to know more.
Interesting that Lawson "wasn't very impressed" with Wozniak (or Jobs) when he applied for a job. I'm not clear on the timing, but it sounds like this would have been after they built Breakout for Atari.
Because he did those things while playing on the 'hard' life difficulty setting.
At any rate, you're presenting a false dichotomy. It's not an either/or proposition. They -are- celebrating what he did; it's all the more impressive that he did it while being black, in a time and place where that was a major obstacle.
I bet he would have spent a lot of money to get into that position too. Except he and his family were of very limited means.
Really, if you want to play the "other people have it harder" game, I will readily bow out; of course there are.
But within the confines of "here's someone who had a major influence in his profession", to dismiss his skin color as not being of note, to ignore the additional obstacles society would have placed in front of him, is to deny him some credit for having overcome those obstacles. That's why it's mentioned, that's why it matters. I agree, ideally it wouldn't matter; the fact is is that because to some people being black is a detriment means that being black includes extra obstacles, and it's worth recognizing those who overcome them.
