After 7 years working in the Target Area Group, Dave transferred to the operations team and worked on the laser itself. He also became the understudy of the computer control specialist and learned to program a GEC4080 ‘minicomputer’ in Babbage. Over the subsequent years, there have been various laser enhancements and upgrades (for example, the Petawatt beamline and target area built from 2000 to 2002). As the laser system has expanded, Dave has continued to develop the controls, including rewriting the control system code to negate the so called ‘millennia-bug’ developing a system which now uses a distributed network of multiple PC’s running applications written in Delphi (visual Pascal). Dave has for many years also been designing and manufacturing diffractive optics (so called ‘phase plates’ being key elements for some experiments) but the biggest and most significant changes to both the laser system and its controls are now underway with the Vulcan 20-20 upgrade.
Having been working in the CLF for nearly half a century, Dave has now reduced his days, beginning the slide towards retirement.
Interests:
Lasers, computing, diffractive optics, grandchildren