Interesting information regarding your connection to Motorola. So I guess PA Consulting of Cambridge contacted Motorola Strathclyde and asked if they knew a good programmer for the BIOS job - and that is how you got involved? I think the story about your initials is already well known.
Do you still have the source code for the Dragon's BIOS? I think that would be a gem for the archive.
History of Home Computers
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geirhovland
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2011 7:38 am
- Location: Norway
Re: History of Home Computers
Duncan,
I was in contact with Ian Thompson-Bell in September last year and he did say he would try and contact you as it would be good to say hello again. He has recalled a number of stories from the time you and he worked on the 1st prototype along with Gary Askew of CS Designs who did the PCB layout.
He told me in some detail how the change to the keyboard routine came about.
He was going to write a summary of his time on this project but has not yet got round to it.
One area that I don't have much information on is the later years of Dragon Data when the "Alpha/Professional" and "Beta" were being developed - so anything that you could add to this would be welcome.
I would also like to say thank you for allowing Richard Harding to visit (must be about 4-5 years ago now) and obtain the photos and disk images (and the signed book for me) - Richard isn't very active anymore - but he does still have a fully working Professional (as do I) and he has also restored a "Beta" motherboard to working status - This was then used to create the emulation of the "Beta" available in MESS (www.mess.com).
Regards
Simon (admin of this site)
I was in contact with Ian Thompson-Bell in September last year and he did say he would try and contact you as it would be good to say hello again. He has recalled a number of stories from the time you and he worked on the 1st prototype along with Gary Askew of CS Designs who did the PCB layout.
He told me in some detail how the change to the keyboard routine came about.
He was going to write a summary of his time on this project but has not yet got round to it.
One area that I don't have much information on is the later years of Dragon Data when the "Alpha/Professional" and "Beta" were being developed - so anything that you could add to this would be welcome.
I would also like to say thank you for allowing Richard Harding to visit (must be about 4-5 years ago now) and obtain the photos and disk images (and the signed book for me) - Richard isn't very active anymore - but he does still have a fully working Professional (as do I) and he has also restored a "Beta" motherboard to working status - This was then used to create the emulation of the "Beta" available in MESS (www.mess.com).
Regards
Simon (admin of this site)
Simon Hardy
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geirhovland
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2011 7:38 am
- Location: Norway
Re: History of Home Computers
Does anyone know of any TV documentaries about the Dragon 32/64 or Mettoy, Dragon Data or Eurohard or the people involved? There was a documentary a few years ago by BBC (Micro Men, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y8IkcUGV9w ). Something similar about the Dragon would be very interesting to watch.
Re: History of Home Computers
The only one that I'm aware of involving Dragon Data was "The Money Programme" who did some filming at the factory (two clips used in Electric Dreams are on the front page)... The full programme is significantly longer and not known to exist in the public domain.
Simon Hardy