In 1982, a Welsh company called Dragon Data Ltd announced the release of a new microcomputer - the Dragon 32. Within a year it had sold over 40,000 units, and had hundreds of software titles available. Despite the release of a later model (the Dragon 64), and upgrades such as modems, printers, disk drives etc, as well the machine being one of the most technically advanced home computers of its time, the company had gone into receivership by 1985. Dragons were being made first by GEC, then by a Spanish company Eurohard, then not at all. Saint George had once again had his wicked way.

The Hardware

The Dragon 32 (D32) was based around Motorola's powerful processor the MC6809E. This was the eight-bit¹ forerunner to the MC68000 series used in Amiga and Macintosh machines. The processor's speed was a comparatively low 0.9MHz (the Zilog Z80 used in the Spectrum ran at 4MHz) but its efficiency, ease of programming and the custom hardware designed for the Dragon and CoCo (the Tandy Color Computer - a very similar machine to the Dragon) meant that it would perform at a comparable standard.

As the name of the machine suggests, original Dragons were shipped with 32 kilobytes of RAM - that's one 1024th of the memory in the PC used to write this entry. They didn't have Random Access storage such as floppy drives unless this was purchased as an add-on, instead they used standard audio cassettes to store programs and data. Certain programs were also available on ROM cartridges, with the effect that they would not only use less RAM than the equivalent cassette program but would also load in a couple of seconds instead of a couple of minutes.

The D32 used an RF modulator to create output that could be viewed on a standard TV, but also had a socket for connecting a monitor. The graphics chip had a maximum of nine colours but due to memory restrictions the highest resolution (256x192 pixels - compare with 800x600 for modern machines) was only capable of displaying two.

The Software

All Dragons had Microsoft extended BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) shipped with the computer in ROM - ie, it would load as soon as the computer was turned on. Other software was loaded and executed from this. The machine's (then) fantastic graphic and sound capabilities made it a natural choice for games programmers who could create games that ran as smoothly as arcade machines and with the same amount of aesthetic 'eye candy'. Titles such as 'Frogger', 'Moon Cresta', 'Chuckie Egg' and 'Donkey Kong' were all ported to the Dragon and the machine had its own arcade hero in the form of Microdeal's Cuthbert, the Sonic of his day. The Dragon also featured Worlds of Flight - one of the first 3D flight simulators.

Other games made less use of the custom hardware but were just as addictive or even more so - there were literally dozens of text-only adventures in the style of the original 'Crystal Caves' such as 'Black Sanctum', 'El Diablero' and 'Madness and the Minotaur'.

The Dragon was also used for office software as it had a parallel port connection for a printer, and could take a disk drive which would allow users to manipulate database files. Dragon's own word processor, although not WYSIWYG was very powerful as it had a feature whereby it was possible to program the printer directly via escape codes and thus any feature the printer had could be exploited.

Operating Systems

Unless a program was written in BASIC - which would usually make it very slow if it had to do anything in real-time - it didn't actually interface with the standard operating system at all. For people who owned disk drives there were two operating systems that would allow communication with this peripheral - they were known as Flex and OS9.

Dragons Online

There were modems available for the Dragon computers but they weren't used for the Internet - largely because at the time the Internet was not publicly accessible. Dragons were able to connect to bulletin board systems (BBSs) where it was possible to read and post messages to other users and download software or files, and they could also connect to the Prestel system, which was a forerunner to the Web and was essentially like an online teletext system.

The Competition

The 1980s was the decade of the microcomputer, and the average computer buyer had literally dozens of different machines to choose from. The main competitors of the Dragon 32 are listed below.

Sinclair

Sir Clive Sinclair, the man who brought you the electric scooter and the first coin-sized radio, created the Spectrum. Available in four varieties - regular, +1, +2 and +3 - and sporting between 48 and 128kb of RAM, the Spectrum was both larger in capacity and faster than the Dragon. Although the Spectrum made it into the front room of many of Thatcher's teenagers, they really only sold as games machines rather than home computers. The reasons for this are that programming them was quite tricky (you couldn't just type code in, you had to use combinations of hotkeys for everything), and that the display wasn't set up to be capable of word processing. It only had one resolution in which to display any graphics or text, and because of a limitation of the graphics system there was only one size of font available, and it was very hard to read on-screen.

Note also that Sinclair released a 'next-generation' computer, the Quantum Leap or QL. This was aimed primarily at the business market - it had specifications similar to the Amiga or Atari and used the powerful formula processing language Forth - but it was not retrocompatible with the Spectrum and cost a lot for what it was, so never really took off.

Commodore

Commodore had already experienced success in the home computer market with the PET and VIC20 by the time the Dragon came along, but its biggest hit of the decade was simply called 64. With 64k of memory and a powerful graphics chip which was the first to feature sprites (images which display over the graphics screen), the only real letdown of the 64 was that it had a comparatively poor processor in the form of the 6502 (approximately the same speed as the 6809 in terms of processor clock but less efficient and harder to code). The 64 was one of the largest selling home computers of the time.

Commodore's next big release was the Amiga (a project they bought from Atari, whose own equivalent ST computer didn't do nearly as well). Although at the time of release the Amiga cost over £1000, it quickly became one of the first 'next-generation' machines to become widely popular in the home. When Commodore went bankrupt in the mid-90s, Escom acquired it, and when they collapsed, Amiga Technologies took over. They are still in business today and are working on the AmigaOne.

Acorn

Acorn had limited success with their first computer, called simply the Atom. Acorn were soon pulled into a deal with the BBC, and the BBC Micro was born, which was used throughout schools in the 1980s as an Auntie-endorsed education machine. Sales to home users weren't as numerous as other competing machines, but the BBC Micro was incredibly expandable and, as a result of its use in education, had add-ons such as robotic arms and 'turtles' (small drawing robots) in the commercial market.

The processor used was the same as in the Commodore 64. For home users Acorn also produced a cut-down system called the Electron. It was essentially the same computer but had fewer graphics and sound capabilities and fewer expansion possibilities.

The collaboration between Acorn and the education system eventually produced the Archimedes, which again had its biggest market in schools. The Archimedes is still being made, although not by Acorn, who went bankrupt in the '90s. It is one of the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Chip) computers which are incredibly powerful and inexpensive, athough they have almost completely lost their home and education market.

And if you're wondering what would have happened if Auntie hadn't intervened, the BBC-B was originally set to have been called the Proton.

Atari

Atari's ST computer came on the market at approximately the same time as the Amiga, though the latter fared better (possibly because many people already owned and trusted their Commodore 64s). The ST made a big splash in the music industry as it was the only home computer to have integrated MIDI hardware, so it could control digital instruments. As is noted above, Atari originally had the rights to the Amiga name but sold this to Commodore as they believed that the ST machine was superior.

MSX

The MSX² was Microsoft's (and, admittedly, ASCII's) first aborted attempt to dominate the computer market. The idea was that many different manufacturers would create systems that were internally the same, but would have some differences so that they could be used in specific circumstances. For instance, Yamaha's MSX machine had a MIDI interface so that it could be used in music. Others had better graphic capabilities, or robot interfaces etc.

Although MSX took off in Asia and Russia (the USSR bought thousands for use in classrooms), in the USA and UK they sold very few units and so the idea eventually ground to a halt. In some countries MSX machines were designed right up until 1992 (the Turbo-R) and they still have a user base but it is mainly in the retro market. When GEC owned Dragon towards the end of its life they had plans to release an MSX machine but this never got past the design stage due to financial problems. Many Dragon users at the time were upset because it suggested that Dragon were going to ditch the original computer.

So What Went Wrong?

It appears to have been a case of Dragon Data not knowing that anything was going wrong. Most Dragons sold in the UK were sold through Boots (the Chemist), so when they refused to stock computers any more the number of new units being sold decreased dramatically. Demand for increased speed, memory and storage capacities were not met when Dragon continued to use the 6809 processor, and only offered 64kb of memory (the Dragon 64) when competing systems such as the new PCs, Amigas and Macintoshes had up to 256kb. A disk drive - rapidly becoming an essential part of any home computer - cost approximately as much as the computer itself did.

Interviews at the time (in magazines such as Dragon User) with directors of Dragon Data Ltd, and the companies that took them over, revealed that there weren't any plans to hugely revamp the Dragon. There were, in fact, alpha designs for an MSX machine(see above) and a two-processor version, but they weren't approaching completion when Dragon folded. However, the interviews did mention that they were instead concentrating on releasing new peripherals for existing computers; an idea which the consumer found too expensive. In short, although the Dragon was released as one of the best computers available, it rapidly became overtaken.