David Hale
1465 Hooksett Rd  Unit 469
Hooksett, NH03106

May 2011 update :

For many years my wife, Pam, has been dedicated to helping her Mom.  With our 3 'kids' and grand kids living so far away, we do not get enough opportunities to see them.  It is hard to believe that our oldest grandson is graduating from his high school in California almost exactly 50 years from the date we received our Stevens High School diplomas.   By traveling to California we will be able to see our 2 sons' and daughter's  families ingluding 7 grand kids !!   Sorry not to see you on our 50th alumni, but please enjoy the reunion and take pictures to share with others who could not make it...

After high school I enlisted in the U.S. Army for three years. My training started in New Jersey at Fort Dix and Fort Monmouth. Later, orders took me to Fort Bliss, Texas for specialized electronics training. As part of the 61st Signal Corps team members, we became responsible for maintaining a mobile air defense system.  During the Cuban crisis, our detachment got shots, packed up, and made a great effort to prepare the equipment vans and generators. We were very disappointed that the deployment orders to Florida were canceled.

Late in 1964, I joined Sanders Associates in Nashua as a technician.  Sanders had won a Saturn V contract with NASA.  It was challenging to work with several engineers to develop these state of the art display consoles.  Installing Sanders displays at the Launch Control Center at Cape Canaveral was a thrilling experience.

Many summer days were enjoyed at my parents' cottage in New London, NH. This was a favorite place for family and friends.  Water skiing, canoeing, sail boating, windsurfing, and tandem bike riding were some of the preferred activities.

During my employment with Sanders it was exciting to see the evolution of electronics. The first video game was developed at Sanders by Ralph Baer.  I was lucky to have had closed circuit TV experience and was asked to set up a television camera for Ralph to demonstrate the Pong game around 1967.

Coming from a family of vast musical talent, I appreciated music, but did seem to have this natural ability. With a desire to make music in a different way, I quit Sanders for over a year to design a digital music synthesizer. This synthesizer was not commercialized, but it was played by a number of organists in various concerts in NH.

Also, during this time of unemployment, I worked with Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center. Sanders donated display equipment and schematics.  Physically challenged students seemed to enjoy a new way to communicate by the assistance of our newly developed human interfaces and displays.

After returning to Sanders, my most challenging work was a DEC PDP-11 computer emulator. This printed circuit board made Sanders Display Systems products much more competitively priced. During the last years of employment, I was involved with developing both high performance graphics hardware as well as diagnostic software.

Marrying in 1985, I celebrated by a honeymoon cruise with my wife Pam and her two sons and daughter. I have always considered my wife's three children as my own and am proud of them, and five grandchildren. One son is career Navy, the other a member of the FBI, and our daughter is an event planner at the Cincinnati Zoo. One of our greatest pleasures is to visit our grandchildren.