History of Home Computers

[geirhovland]

For those who are interested in the history of home computers, here are some interesting links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_computer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer
http://www.coco3.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

It is probably true that the downfall of Dragon Data Ltd. to some extent was caused by internal factors, like the Dragon 64 being slow to market, the delay of OS-9, the lack of comparable graphics and sound compared to the Commodore 64, the lack of lower-case letters which prevented the Dragon from entering the educational market, etc., etc.

But, there were also significant external factors, like the micro computer market war in 1983, partially caused by Commodore Business Machines, and the North American video game crash, also in 1983 (these events were probably related).

The history of the Dragon could have been very different if Tandy had taken over Dragon Data's operations in 1984, instead of Eurohard of Spain. In 1986 Tandy released the CoCo3 with 128K RAM expandable to 512K. Maybe that computer would have been marketed in Europe as the Dragon 128? But, eventually Tandy also had to give up against the PC clones, and stopped manufacturing the CoCo3 in 1991.

Of all those micro computer companies from the 80's, only Apple survived, and we all know how that story has developed... If events had played out differently, who knows - maybe everyone would be using a tablet PC from Dragon Data Ltd. of Kenfig Industrial Estate, Port Talbot these days...

[geirhovland]

At the Wikipedia page for the CoCo, the following statement is made: "The Dragon 32 and 64 computers were British clones of the CoCo." Regarding the Dragon 32, there is little doubt about the cloning, but what about the Dragon 64?

According to David Linsley's Dragon History at this site: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum ... istory.php : "Dragon/Tano held a booth at the three day Color Computer Exposition '83 in Pasedena, with the 64 together with disc drive being the main display item even out-doing Tandy/Radio Shack's launch of a 64K CoCo."

So, it seems that the Dragon 64 was not a clone of the CoCo2, but the machines are still remarkably similar. What was Motorola's role in this? Were they sharing/leaking information between Tandy and Dragon Data Ltd. to promote sales of the 6809? Does anyone have more information about this?

[sixxie]

That's a good point...

The SAM data sheet contains a block schematic of a typical machine based around the three chips which closely matches the Dragon & CoCo 1/2 so you could argue that the original 32 was just an implementation of that, and they happened to go to the same people for an implementation of BASIC. Except that I think someone from Dragon Data actually admitted it was a clone at some point.

But the changes in the Dragon 64 certainly don't reflect anything Tandy did, so yeah - it's its own machine, albeit with that clone heritage.

Not sure what Tandy would have done if they'd taken over - would the Dragon name ever have been seen again?

While it was "business" that really decided that the PC "won", I know the modular upgradeable approach of the PC seemed like a plus to us at home - sure, *now* everyone likes to repeatedly pay Apple for the latest shiny, but at the time it seemed like a good idea that you could upgrade a system over time as you had the money to do so. I wonder if that would have been a point against the Dragon products in development.

But to be honest, I think I'd be as jaded about the concept of a Dragon tablet computer as I am about an Apple one

[Rink]

It would have been interesting to see the evolution of any of the old companies; I always imagined a Dragon 16-bit offering would be similar to the Amiga 500 or Atari ST... but then what? If the market hadn't changed so drastically, what would Dragon (or even guys like Commodore/Atari) be producing now?

Whilst I'm not sure any of them would have had lives like Apple's; stylish self-contained computers like the original iMacs/iBooks, would have been a somewhat natural evolution of the product design, I guess.

[geirhovland]

Well, history is repeating itself, see this link: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/221950/ ... -barne.htm

Now there is a market war for tablet PC's including companies like Apple, Samsung and recently Amazon with the Kindle Fire. It will be interesting to see how Apple responds. In the 80's, they were a niche player with a solid user base, and did not participate in the market war by lowering prices. This time, they are not a niche player anymore...

The technology field is notoriously difficult to predict and invest in, see for example this recent article citing Warren Buffett: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/2 ... 38288.html

[Alastair]

At the Wikipedia page for the CoCo, the following statement is made: "The Dragon 32 and 64 computers were British clones of the CoCo." Regarding the Dragon 32, there is little doubt about the cloning, ...

I'm not sure how much we can trust a Wikipedia entry, as Sixxie points out both computers were influenced by Motorola and perhaps not just by Motorola's data sheets. It's my understanding that when Tandy approached Motorola about purchasing 6809 chips that Motorola offered Tandy a discount on the price of the CPU if Tandy would also buy what would now be called the chipset from Motorola (the SAM, etc.), unsurprisingly, Tandy took up that offer. This offer was repeated when Dragon Data came calling, and again the offer was taken up.

We really don't know if Dragon Data set out to clone the CoCo, or if it was Motorola's influence that led to the computers being so similar. What we need is someone who was privy to Dragon Data's discussions about creating the Dragon computer to tell us.

[geirhovland]

Mettoy being new to the computer industry, it is natural to think that they sought inspiration from existing designs. In addition, Tandy did not hold any patents valid in the UK for the CoCo, so it was probably a calculated risk from Mettoy. To avoid legal action, they also made several changes and improvements: PAL/NTSC circuit, improved and remapped keyboard, parallel/serial printer port, BASIC tokens reworked, etc.

As you say, Alastair, we need a Dragon Data employee to confirm it once and for all. Then, we can also update the CoCo wikipedia entry to make sure that the Dragon's place in history is recorded as accurately as possible. Does anyone know a former Dragon Data employee who may have information related to this?

[xtramural]

As you say, Alastair, we need a Dragon Data employee to confirm it once and for all. Then, we can also update the CoCo wikipedia entry to make sure that the Dragon's place in history is recorded as accurately as possible. Does anyone know a former Dragon Data employee who may have information related to this?

I've just signed up to respond. Sadly Duncan is already taken as a member's name so I'll use my alter ego I don't have time just now to give a blow-by-blow account of the origins of the Dragon 32 but here's a quick summary:

The Dragon 32 hardware design was contracted out by Mettoy to PA Consulting in Cambridge
The design was based on a reference design from Motorola that was produced as an exemplar of the capabilities of the MC6809E (MPU) when coupled with the MC6847 (Video Display Generator - VDG) and the MC6883 (Synchronous Address Multiplexer - SAM). I'm not sure of how much input Tandy had to the US reference design. So, in that respect there are elements of cloning.

However, there ware obviously design changes introduced - PAL video for instance - that others have mentioned. I was commissioned to write the BIOS code for the Dragon 32 to the specifications and API drawn up by Microsoft and, to a certain extent, PA Consulting. For instance, my BIOS code for scanning the keyboard given the underlying hardware design that I influenced was much more efficient than the CoCo's and this had the effect of speeding up Dragon BASIC by - IIRC - about 10-20% compared to the CoCo implementation of the BASIC interpreter.

I've just been asked by a students' computer group to give the a talk about the Dragon 32 and my time at Dragon Data so no doubt I'll return to this forum with more war stories and to check some of my facts and dates

Most of you will probably know of the http://dragondata.worldofdragon.org/har ... pippin.htm photo that shows the first ever Dragon 16 (as it was then) to breathe fire.

Now, I must really get back to the day job!

PS Lots more info in my book "Inside the Dragon".

[geirhovland]

Hello Duncan, thanks for the updated information. I was wondering why you were commissioned to write the BIOS. My guess is that you were based close to Motorola's semi-conductor base in Strathclyde, Scotland and that you had some previous experience with the chipset?

[xtramural]

Hello Duncan, thanks for the updated information. I was wondering why you were commissioned to write the BIOS. My guess is that you were based close to Motorola's semi-conductor base in Strathclyde, Scotland and that you had some previous experience with the chipset?

Yes. Good guess. I was at the time a lecturer in Computer Science at Strathclyde University. I was (and like to think still am) a very good MC6809 assembly language programmer. I used Motorola's facilities to produce the Dragon ROM. Rather cheekily I patched the ROM binary by hand to include my initials just after the normal printer end-of-line byte sequence. The patch was done by hand to avoid any trace in my source code. By poking a certain number into a certain memory address it was possible to get the printer to print out my initials at the end of every line!