George F. Dalrymple

Communications engineer

Life Member, 84; died 28 August (2015)

Dalrymple was a research engineer at MIT for 32 years.

He started out as a graduate assistant in the physics lab at Rice University, in Houston. After earning his master’s degree in 1954, Dalrymple joined MIT Lincoln Laboratories, in Lexington, Mass., where he worked on communications for NASA’s Mercury and Apollo missions.

In 1968 he transferred to MIT’s Sensory Aid Evaluation and Development Center, where he worked on rehabilitation aids for children with cerebral palsy and technology to help people who are blind use computers. He retired in 1986.

Dalrymple was a volunteer in his hometown of Bedford, Mass., serving on the Historic District Commission, the Fire Department Building Committee, and the Public Access Television Committee. For his efforts, he was named 1998 Bedford Citizen of the Year. Dalrymple also volunteered for Meals on Wheels, a food delivery service for the elderly.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1951 from Phillips University, in Enid, Okla.

Bob Gildea born about 1924. He lost his sight at age 14, fluctuating. At age 20, he was legally blind. He went to 2 differnt high schools: Boson College ish School for 2 year, and Boston English high school to get access to physics and chmistry. He went to Boston College to get a B.S. in physics In college, he had not learned braille; he used a lot of readers. All of his exams were oral. Bob had a good memory 1945, graduated from Boston College. He went to Brown University to get a masters in Applied Math. He found after getting his degrees that his life was quite disorganized. He was cycling through the 24 hour clock. He decided he needed the disciple of a job, so for 3 years he "made brooms: at a sheltered workshop to bring some structure to his life. In March 1953, he became a night supervisor on a computer project related to Project Whirlwind. (first modern computer) Later he worked for Lincoln Labs, and the for RCA (in the Airborne Instruments Lab) working on a Burroughs Computer, simulating Fighter Planes, 1956-1966. Mr. Gildea worked for MITRE from 1966-1986. where we was in charge of the DODSYS/Braille translaton project. The development DOTSYS 3 was carried out at MITRE under the direction of Robert A . J . Gildea, presently chairman of SIGCAPH, under contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sensory Aids Center and the Atlanta Public Schools Computer Braille Project. Professor Robert Mann of MIT and Dr. Marion Boyles of Atlanta directed the project at their respective establishments. Vito Procia and George Dalrymple of MIT, and Robert Lagrone and Donald Bell of IBM and Atlanta, were also instrumental in various phases of the project, especially in helping to improve the translation quality while integrating the program into their operating environments. He founded VIBUG, part of the now-defunct Boston Computer Society. Even though BCS is gone, VIBUG is still going strong. Bob brought his own equipment in one day to braille the levers on the soda machine at the Boston Computer Society.