Technologies Time Forgot: The Dragon 32

Welsh splendour from the early 80s... iechyd dda!

The kids loved the ZX Spectrum and the BBC Micro, but Graham Hayday's memories of the Dragon 32 aren't quite so fond... Christmas, 1983. I wanted a computer to play games on. My parents wanted a computer I could learn to program on. The result: I ended up with a Dragon 32. My mum and dad believed its keys were much more grown-up than the Spectrum's rubber horrors and it must therefore have been a far more serious machine. And in one way they were right: the games on it were rubbish, but sadly for them this didn't propel me into a life of programming. In fact I spent most of my time round at my mates' houses playing on their Spectrums and Commodore 64s. They could play Manic Miner in colour and everything - unlike Dragon 32 users.
The Dragon 32 hit the shelves in August 1982 (see http://www.imarshall.karoo.net/dragon_32.htm for a pictorial reminder of the dear old thing). It was made by a Welsh company called Dragon Data, which at the time was a subsidiary of toy outfit Mettoy. Although the workings of the 32k machine bore a suspicious resemblance to a load of technology originally invented by Tandy (including the chipset, keyboard layout, cartridge connection and joystick ports), Dragon somehow avoided legal action and soon became Wales' favourite corporate son. It used a Motorola 6809 processor, which apparently did make life easy for programmers. The company soon received a timely boost from its rivals: Acorn and even the mighty Sinclair were hit by supply problems, and, thanks to some heavy promotion by Boots the Chemist, Dragon 32s were flying off the shelves. A 'proper' computer for around £170: bargain. Indeed, come spring 1983, over 40,000 units had been shipped from the factory in the Valleys (well, Port Talbot), making Dragon Data the largest privately held company in Wales. I came across the Dragon while doing the weekly shop in the SavaCentre hypermarket outside Reading. I must confess I too was drawn to its chunky keys. I even worked out within minutes how to change the background colour and then managed to plot some orange and black squares in the middle of the screen a couple of weeks later. GOTO LINE 20... that's about all I can remember about my first programming effort - first and last effort in fact. But for the game player in me, at least this thing came with joysticks... Ah yes, the joysticks. Within days of me excitedly pulling the strangely butterscotch-coloured unit from its squeaky polystyrene packaging, I'd bent one of them to a 70 degree angle. Most straws have more strength in them than the average Dragon joystick. But as I say, I didn't really play games on it all that often. Horace Goes Skiing was an embarrassment. Manic Miner (in black and white) didn't have the gameplay of the Spectrum version (but at least I knew the cheat to get unlimited lives). If anyone had attempted to write an athletics game which required the frenetic joystick waggling familiar to all Commodore users, then the future of the company would have been secured by the huge demand for replacement peripherals alone. But sadly, its future was anything but secure. In fact its finances had been shaky from the word go. As early as December 1982, parent company Mettoy was in deep trouble, which forced Dragon Data into a refinancing exercise. It went independent and raised money from various sources, including the Welsh Development Agency, which ended up owning 23 per cent of the company. Prutech - an investment arm of insurance giant the Prudential - owned a further 42 per cent, and arranged for a heavyweight former GEC executive to join the company. He came on board in summer '83 in the hope he could turn round its far from rosy fortunes. He certainly tried. In August, the £225 Dragon 64 was launched in the US, and came to the UK in November. The more powerful machine was grey instead of butterscotch, no doubt signalling the company's intent to be seen as a manufacturer of serious computers. There was even talk of a Dragon 128, but the UK was never to see such a beast. Despite healthy sales of the 64 model, the company was still stuck in the financial mire. GEC tried to take a stronger grip on the company by moving it even higher up the computing food chain, but that failed too. In fact, in July 1984, things got so bad that Dragon Data filed for bankruptcy. GEC and Tandy both sniffed around its assets, but Eurohard, a Spanish company, snapped it up for a reputed £1m. Eurohard talked a good talk. The bulk of production moved to Spain. Dragon 32s and 64s continued to sell well in their new home country France and Israel also had a minor love affair with the hardware. Eurohard even attempted a BBC Micro-style educational push in Spain with the Dragon. It went on to release a touch-tablet machine under the Dragon brand (but that, cleverly, wasn't compatible with the Dragon itself). Rumours of the 128k monster continued to circulate for a while, but then things went strangely quiet. And remained that way... For the second half of this article, click here: http://www.silicon.com/a51176