Sanders Associates, Inc. was a defense contractor in Nashua, New Hampshire, United States, from 1951 until it was sold in 1986. It is now part of BAE Systems Electronics & Integrated Solutions, a subsidiary of BAE Systems. It concentrated on developing and manufacturing electronic systems, notably aircraft self-protection systems, and tactical surveillance and intelligence systems. Other business areas included microwave, missile and space electronics; infrared imaging; and automated mission planning systems, with both military and commercial applications.
The first home video game console was developed as a side project by engineer Ralph H. Baer and several assistants at Sanders. The production of the final product was granted to Magnavox, a home electronics company, and sold under the name Magnavox Odyssey.
History
The company was founded in Waltham, Massachusetts in July 1951, formed by eleven engineers and scientists from Raytheon. It was named for Royden C. Sanders Jr., one of the original eleven associates. It moved its operations to Nashua in 1952, taking up a vacant mill building and restoring economic vitality to a city that had been devastated by the post-World War II departure of the textile industry from New England to the lower-cost American South.[1]