[3] He was educated at Dulwich College in south London,[4] During his adolescence he built George the robot out of Meccano, and continued working on it until it reached a fourth version in 1949, when it was given much media coverage.
During his three years in the RAF, Sale gained a commission and reached the rank of Flying Officer.
[4] He was part of the group that started the Computer Conservation Society in 1989 and was associated with the Bletchley Park Trust from 1992 onwards.
In 1992, he was Secretary to the newly formed Bletchley Park Trust, later unpaid Museums Director in 1994.
As a result of his Colossus rebuild work,[7] Sale was awarded the Comdex IT Personality of the Year for 1997.
[18] In September 2019, Sale was posthumously awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the National Museum of Computing.