American computer engineer who helped design the Amiga custom hardware, Agnus chip and system boards, and later co-created the Atari Lynx and 3DO.
| Biographical Information | |
|---|---|
| Known for | Hardware Designer, Hardware Engineer, Inventor |
| Nationality | American |
| Born | December 17, 1947 |
| Died | February 20, 2016 |
David Lewis "Dave" Needle was an American computer engineer and one of the key hardware designers on the original Amiga. He joined the project during development of the Lorraine prototype and worked with Jay Miner, Ron Nicholson and the rest of the hardware team to turn its custom-chip concepts into a production computer.
Needle contributed to the Agnus custom chip and to the Amiga’s system boards. Agnus coordinated memory access and contained the blitter and copper coprocessors that allowed the machine to move graphics data and alter display settings with limited demand on the Motorola 68000 processor. Needle also helped solve the practical board-level and production problems involved in bringing the Amiga 1000 to market.
After Amiga, Needle worked again with RJ Mical and Dave Morse. He co-designed the Epyx Handy, released as the Atari Lynx, and later helped create the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. He remained closely associated with the original Amiga engineering community until his death in 2016.
Helped found The 3DO Company and designed hardware for the 3DO platform.
Continued work on Amiga hardware after Commodore acquired the company.
Member of the original Amiga hardware team and co-designer of its custom-chip architecture.
Contributed to Agnus, system boards and production hardware.
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