Dave Needle

Dave Lewis Needle was an electronics engineer whose skills and insistent approach made the Amiga computer see the light of day. He was born in New York City, NY on December 17, 1947. Prior to joining Amiga in 1983, he already had 14 years of experience under his belt. He received a B.E.E. from the City College of New York in 1969. That same year, he would design computer test equipment for the Navy, working on their VAST system.

In 1978, he began working at Tandem Computers, designing terminals. One of which he became the system architect for. Four years later, he started a consulting company, Software & Hardware Innovative Technologies (S.H.I.T.) along with Stan Shepard and Robert Ewell. They worked on several arcade games with Dave also designing his own, such as Change Lanes for Taito America and a Star Trek game for Midway.

Upon interviewing at Amiga with Dave Morse, his attitude was seen as too arrogant and was dismissed by Morse, basically telling him to "Go away." While at Amiga's offices, Dave Needle saw the whiteboard with the architecture for the Lorraine computer. He had to work at this company, however possible. Dave called the next day and apologized to Dave Morse, who then gave him a second interview. He was hired.