Hello and welcome to the Dragon Archive!
It's nice to hear from you, and I'd like to thank you for offering to send us the photocopies and the disk.
I created the spreadsheet, and I have also scanned and dumped a lot of titles. If you don't mind sending them to Spain, I'll be more than glad to scan and dump any missing software.
Please contact me at robcfg (at) gmail (dot) com, so we can work the details.
Also a bit of information about your company and products would be awesome for making the wiki more complete.
Best regards!
State of the art of Dragon software preservation
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
Welcome back to the Dragon community 
If your Dragon Plus board is working, this may be the only known living survivor of this endangered specie .
Please post some pictures of it when you have a chance.
If your Dragon Plus board is working, this may be the only known living survivor of this endangered specie .
Please post some pictures of it when you have a chance.
Serenarian wrote: I guess I'll have to dig out the Dragon again and do some coding now that I'm retired. I have a modified Dragon 64 (2 actually) with Dragon Dos, Dragon Plus board and most of the OS-9 software
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
As for the Dragon Plus board - still a very rare thing - but I know of 5 now. Mine is on it way back from Prime where he used it to repair another one. OS9 and FLEX software that supports the board is in the archive...
Simon Hardy
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
Do you have the schematics for the Dragon Plus?admin wrote:As for the Dragon Plus board - still a very rare thing - but I know of 5 now. Mine is on it way back from Prime where he used it to repair another one. OS9 and FLEX software that supports the board is in the archive...
-
Serenarian
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2012 1:28 pm
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
OK, Thanks for the welcome, I'll have to exhume the old Dragons and take out the board for inspection. In the meantime a little about me...
I started computing back in 1977 or 78 as a Maths teacher in a 6th Form college. We had a teletype with a link to the Salford University ICL mainframe and programs were punched to paper tape. No interactive computing in those days and no VDUs. We were able to use a version of BASIC (which was quite new then) and our 32 students had to share two 1 hour sessions per day to punch, upload and run their programs.
When the Apple II came along I wanted one, but couldn't justify the cost - so I bought a Video Genie (Z80 TRS80 clone) instead. You may smile, but it turned out to be a happy choice because a computer group had just started up locally - the "Northwest TRS80 User Group". I joined and was hooked - a great group of talented guys and monthly talks, hardware auctions and Christmas parties. At one point in the early 80s we had almost 200 members.
Soon the TRS80 Color Computer was released, and we supported that too - though there were very few around. Of course when the Dragon came out some of us recognised it as sharing the CoCo architecture and brought it along to the group. With a little persuasion it was accepted as another flavour of Tandy clone. By that time my IT teaching had progressed to other hardware and I was called upon to write articles and give talks and demonstrations to the group, and inevitably I had to knock up pieces of hardware and software to support the topics. One evening it was "Interfacing" and the demonstration of my Dragon radio-controlled tank provided a memorable diversion!
With a group of similar minded Dragon owning members of the group we wrote pieces of software such as Zapper but all too soon flashier computers such as the Atari ST and Amiga came along and we migrated to those. So the Dragons were put away, or sold and forgotten. Well not quite forgotten as you have proved.
I'll take some pictures of the Dragonplus board but I don't have schematics. I had a friend back then who lived on Greenlanes close to Compusense and got it for me at a reduced price (though still quite pricey if I recall).
I started computing back in 1977 or 78 as a Maths teacher in a 6th Form college. We had a teletype with a link to the Salford University ICL mainframe and programs were punched to paper tape. No interactive computing in those days and no VDUs. We were able to use a version of BASIC (which was quite new then) and our 32 students had to share two 1 hour sessions per day to punch, upload and run their programs.
When the Apple II came along I wanted one, but couldn't justify the cost - so I bought a Video Genie (Z80 TRS80 clone) instead. You may smile, but it turned out to be a happy choice because a computer group had just started up locally - the "Northwest TRS80 User Group". I joined and was hooked - a great group of talented guys and monthly talks, hardware auctions and Christmas parties. At one point in the early 80s we had almost 200 members.
Soon the TRS80 Color Computer was released, and we supported that too - though there were very few around. Of course when the Dragon came out some of us recognised it as sharing the CoCo architecture and brought it along to the group. With a little persuasion it was accepted as another flavour of Tandy clone. By that time my IT teaching had progressed to other hardware and I was called upon to write articles and give talks and demonstrations to the group, and inevitably I had to knock up pieces of hardware and software to support the topics. One evening it was "Interfacing" and the demonstration of my Dragon radio-controlled tank provided a memorable diversion!
With a group of similar minded Dragon owning members of the group we wrote pieces of software such as Zapper but all too soon flashier computers such as the Atari ST and Amiga came along and we migrated to those. So the Dragons were put away, or sold and forgotten. Well not quite forgotten as you have proved.
I'll take some pictures of the Dragonplus board but I don't have schematics. I had a friend back then who lived on Greenlanes close to Compusense and got it for me at a reduced price (though still quite pricey if I recall).
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
Rob, having looked at the current spreadsheet I noticed the following issues:
1. As far as I know Oasis Software's Invader Cube and 3D OXO are the same program. I have a copy of Invader Cube and when run it displays 3D OXO throughout the game. So I assume either Oasis changed the title on the packaging to Invader Cube before releasing the game, or they originally released it as 3D OXO and later re-released it with the title Invader Cube but did not bother to change the program.
2. It is my understanding that Automata's game is called Pimania and not Pi-Mania - I've changed the wiki entry but the spreadsheet needs changing.
3. Mysterious Adventures is the name of the series and is not a software publisher and though it is right that they appear in the wiki they should not appear on the spreadsheet. All of the Dragon versions of these adventures were released by Channel 8 Software.
4. As far as I am aware Spectral Associates never released any Dragon programs, instead they released CoCo programs in the USA. Dragon Data and Microdeal both licensed games by Spectral Associates and had these games ported to the Dragon. So like the Mysterious Adventures this is another case where a name should appear in the wiki but not the spreadsheet.
5. Though distributed by Microdeal Buzzard Bait was sold under the Tom Mix Software label.
1. As far as I know Oasis Software's Invader Cube and 3D OXO are the same program. I have a copy of Invader Cube and when run it displays 3D OXO throughout the game. So I assume either Oasis changed the title on the packaging to Invader Cube before releasing the game, or they originally released it as 3D OXO and later re-released it with the title Invader Cube but did not bother to change the program.
2. It is my understanding that Automata's game is called Pimania and not Pi-Mania - I've changed the wiki entry but the spreadsheet needs changing.
3. Mysterious Adventures is the name of the series and is not a software publisher and though it is right that they appear in the wiki they should not appear on the spreadsheet. All of the Dragon versions of these adventures were released by Channel 8 Software.
4. As far as I am aware Spectral Associates never released any Dragon programs, instead they released CoCo programs in the USA. Dragon Data and Microdeal both licensed games by Spectral Associates and had these games ported to the Dragon. So like the Mysterious Adventures this is another case where a name should appear in the wiki but not the spreadsheet.
5. Though distributed by Microdeal Buzzard Bait was sold under the Tom Mix Software label.
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
Thanks for the corrections!
In theory, anyone with a gmail account can edit the spreadsheet. If you cannot, then I'll update it in the following days.
In theory, anyone with a gmail account can edit the spreadsheet. If you cannot, then I'll update it in the following days.
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
Ok, I've fixed the spreadsheet with alastair's corrections.
By the way, Alastair, I've seen that you wrote several walkthroughs for the Classic Adventure Solution Archive (CASA).
I think it would be a nice addition to the wiki pages. Which would be the best? To store your walkthrough in the wiki, or link directly to the CASA pages?
Best regards,
Rob
By the way, Alastair, I've seen that you wrote several walkthroughs for the Classic Adventure Solution Archive (CASA).
I think it would be a nice addition to the wiki pages. Which would be the best? To store your walkthrough in the wiki, or link directly to the CASA pages?
Best regards,
Rob
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
I don't have a Gmail account. Besides, I think it better to discuss corrections such as this in the open rather than altering the spreadsheet myself because this way everyone can see the reasons behind changing the spreadsheet.robcfg wrote:In theory, anyone with a gmail account can edit the spreadsheet. If you cannot, then I'll update it in the following days.
Re: State of the art of Dragon software preservation
I think linking to the CASA pages would be better, since this will simplify updating any walkthroughs (just one site will need updating), plus many of the walkthroughs for games available for the Dragon aren't mine.robcfg wrote:By the way, Alastair, I've seen that you wrote several walkthroughs for the Classic Adventure Solution Archive (CASA).
I think it would be a nice addition to the wiki pages. Which would be the best? To store your walkthrough in the wiki, or link directly to the CASA pages?