A Conversation for The Dragon 32 and the Slaying of the Beast
Other competitors
Madent Started conversation Aug 29, 2001
At the risk of upsetting the author further, it might have been nice to include some of the other serious competitors including Apple and Tandy. Texas Instruments also offered a similar machine, the TI-99/4A (my in-laws still have one in it's original box), which may have been the first colour home computer of the time.
As I recall the original Spectrum and BBC Micro preceded the Dragon by some time. The Dragon was a late entry and failed to pick up market share because of it's relatively low profile. That's not to knock the company or the machine but it was a big factor in their demise.
As seems to be the case in the world of computing, the consumer demands that a wealth of software, services and peripherals be available. In the early days most software etc. was created by dedicated users who enjoyed "playing" with their computer. So if you hadn't got a strong user base committed to developing for a particular product, that product was dead in the water.
Other competitors
The Apprentice Posted Sep 7, 2001
I have a vivid recollection of a machine called the "Oric". It was released in 1983 and was a competitive beast, selling at less than £100. It looked like a ZX-81 but was white and weighed a ton. It varied somewhat from the original joint crunching, flat keyboarded ZX in that the keys had a bit of height to them - not as much as the spoingy keyed Spectrum, but enough to stop RSI setting in before your reached your teens. Classic stuff.
Other competitors
Hoovooloo Posted Jun 20, 2002
One of my friends had a Oric-1... it was a very obvious competitor to the Spectrum, released in a lovely white case with odd clicky keys and far better sound and resolution than the Speccy, but sadly hardly any decent software. A while later the same machine, more or less, was released with a "proper" keyboard and called the Oric Atmos. It never had the software support, so it never threatened the all conquering spec...
Anyone remember the Sord M-5? Or the Elan Enterprise? Or the Aquarius? Nostalgia about computers... now there's 21st century for you...
H.
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Other competitors
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