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The Dragon 32 and Dragon 64 were home computers built in the 1980s, based on the Motorola MC6809E processor running at 0.89 MHz. The Dragons were actually clones of the TRS-80 Color Computer, produced for the European market and manufactured by Dragon Data, Ltd., in Port Talbot, Wales.The main differences between the two models were RAM size and ports. The Dragon 32 had 32 KB of RAM and no serial port, while the Dragon 64 had 64KB and an RS-232 serial port. Several peripherals existed for the Dragon 32/64, and on top of this there were add-ons such as the Dragon's Claw which gave the Dragons access to the BBC Micro's large range of accessories (a particularly important factor in the UK home market). Although neither machine had a built-in disk operating system, DragonDOS was supplied as part of the disk controller interface from Dragon Data Ltd. In addition to the DragonDOS operating system the Dragon 32/64 were capable of running several others, including FLEX and OS-9 which brought UNIX-like multitasking to the platform.
A minor difference between the two Dragon models was the outer case color; the Dragon 32 was beigeBeige is a light yellowish gray color. The term originates from beige cloth, a woolen fabric left in its natural color. It has since come to be used for a range of light shades chosen for their neutral or cool appearance, and is often (mis)used of light b and the 64 was light grey. Besides the color and the Dragon 64's serial port (and the model name stickers, of course), the two machines looked exactly the same.
Unfortunately, unlike the BBC Micro, the Dragon was unable to compete effectively in the developing schools market, because of its inability to display lower-caseMinuscule or lower case is the smaller form ( case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a b c . Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. When written quickly wi letters easily (these had to be synthesised in high-resolution graphics, in the same way that user-defined characters would be designed for purely graphical applications such as games).
After the collapse of Dragon Data, Dragons still proved quite popular. They had a robust motherboardA motherboard also known as mainboard logic board or systemboard is the central or primary circuit board making up a complex electronic system, such as a computer. A typical computer is built with the microprocessor, main memory, and other basic component, tolerant of home-modification. Many 32s were upgraded by their owners to 64K. A few were further expanded to 128K, 256K, or 512K, with home-built memory controllers/ memory management unitMMU short for Memory Management Unit is a class of computer hardware components responsible for handling memory accesses requested by the CPU. Among the functions of such devices are the translation of virtual addresses to physical addresses (i. virtual ms (MMUs), and were able to run OS-9 Level 2.
1 Dragon trivia
- Accessing certain memory mapped control registers let the processor double its ROM and/or RAM access speed. Unfortunately, the latter somewhat compromised the stability of the system.
2 References
- Vander Reyden, John (1983). Dragon 32 programmer's reference guide. Melbourne House. BooksEnthsiast.com.
3 External links
Home computers
