[3] His father, Blanton, was a longshoreman with an interest in science, while his mother, Mannings, worked for the city, and also served on the Parent-Teachers Association for the local school.

[5][6] His parents ensured he received a good education and encouraged his interests in scientific hobbies, including ham radio and chemistry.

At the age of 13, he gained an amateur radio license and built his own station at home with parts he bought from local electronic stores.

[3] There, he led the development of the Fairchild Channel F console, released in 1976 and specifically designed to use swappable game cartridges based on technology licensed from Alpex.

Lawson and his team refined and improved technology developed at Alpex that allowed games to be stored as software on removable ROM cartridges.

[3] In 1980, Lawson left Fairchild and founded Videosoft, a video game development company that made software for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s, as the 2600 had displaced the Channel F as the top system in the market.

At one point, he worked with Stevie Wonder to produce a "Wonder Clock" that would wake a child with the sound of a parent's voice, though it never made it to production.

[23] A short documentary on Lawson and his development of the Fairchild Channel F was produced by The Czar of Black Hollywood director Bayer Mack and released by Block Starz Music Television as part of its Profiles of African-American Success video series.

[24] He was also featured in the first episode of the Netflix limited-series documentary High Score, released August 19, 2020, with his story told by his children Karen and Anderson.