NEW INTERVIEW: Ed Smith, Video Gaming Pioneer

African American tech pioneer Ed Smith discusses his life story from growing up in a Brooklyn ghetto to working on the design of early video games and PCs

Today’s guest is the incredible Ed Smith - one of only two known African American engineers who worked on the design of video games in the 1970s and the first African American to work in the design of a personal computer, and the only hybrid video game/personal computer ever released. Listen here.

In this episode, Ed talks me through his childhood, growing up in one of the toughest neighbourhoods in Brooklyn, New York and his desire to create a better life which he found through tech. A voracious reader and into electronics, Ed studied Computer Science before getting a job working on traffic control signals at Marbelite. Whilst there, Ed got the opportunity to go to Fairchild and learn early microprocessor-based circuit design which put his skills in high-demand.

He soon landed at APF Electronics where he immediately starting work on the hardware design and built the prototypes, joystick and port design for the MP1000 video game – one of very few cartridge-based video game systems at the time. Two years later, Ed and the APF design team leveraged the processing power of the MP1000 and Ed’s hardware designs to create the Imagination Machine personal computer which was the first combined home video game console and personal computer.

Ed’s story is inspiring, uplifting and empowering. Some of my favourite quotes:

• “Let’s plug it in and see if it blows up”
• “Use your failures as lesson notes for the future”
• “Never let anyone tell you what you can’t be”

You can listen to the episode on:

• Apple Podcasts here
• Google here
• Spotify here
• Simplecast here

I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did and please don't forget to like, share and review the podcast to help others find it too.

Thanks so much and have a great week.

Danielle