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paul
Posts: 64
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 1:00 am

New member

Post by paul »

Hi, I just found this site because I'm getting yearnings to get back to my Dragon

I had a Dragon when they first came out (I think I wanted a Spectrum (as an upgrade to my ZX80), but couldn't get hold of one, so got a D32 instead - so glad I did). I got a D64 and DDOS, drives, OS9, Flex etc when they all came out as well.

I did a lot of hardware work & programming on them in the day - the Dragon was one of the key things which encouraged me to do Electronic Engineering at university, and I did 6809 assembler programming (and later Pascal & C in OS9). My job now is as a programmer (mainly C++ on Windows), but I have done embedded programming & device driver programming with the skills I learned from the Dragon days :-)

I did write some articles for Dragon User (eg August 1988)

I upgraded the D64 considerably in the later days, with a Dragon -> ISA bus converter which meant I could use a PC MDA graphics card from OS9, and PC floppy disks. I also made a DMA controller (using a 6844 DMA controller) which worked with the PC floppy disks so the Dragon didn't grind to a halt when reading from disk. My final-year project report for my degree was written on this D64 in Stylograph :-)

I've just had a rummage through my attic etc and found lots of old Dragon stuff. (I've found the schematics for the DMA circuitry which did work, and an OS9 Level 2 MMU which never got completed due to real life getting in the way (I think this was based on work by Bob Hall from the NDUG, because he mentions my input in one of his articles on it).

I have several books, lots of magazines & disks & cassettes which I'm going to go through and see if I have any which aren't already on the site, and I'll upload scans of any 'new' magazines, and see if I can work out how to copy the tapes/disks.

I haven't yet found my old D64 - It was modified so much it ended up being migrated to an old PC XT case with a PC keyboard... I hope not, but it may have been thrown out :-( I'm going to have to have a rummage in my Mother's attic as well, to see if I left it there after I moved out of University. I have ordered a Tano D64 from the US to meet my needs :-)
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robcfg
Posts: 1527
Joined: Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:16 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Re: New member

Post by robcfg »

Hi Paul!

Welcome to the Archive and thank you very much for your nice introduction!

You couldn't arrive at a better moment. The Dragon seems to be on the rise again, there's new software and hardware developments, and we have a very nice community.

I hope you find your modified D64!

Best regards,
Rob
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Bosco
Posts: 330
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2014 11:49 pm
Location: Nottingham, UK

Re: New member

Post by Bosco »

Hi and welcome. :D

Always nice to see the archive attracting new members.
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