As far as British home micros go, the Welsh Dragon 32 is one of the more interesting cases. It was, essentially, a modified clone of the CoCo -the CoCo could even be converted into a Dragon- that was the product of a small company, which actually managed to earn a respectable audience and more than a few great games. You can bid on this cheap Dragon 32 and see what it's all about. The computer seems to be in good condition and comes with its power adapter, the audio leads, a joystick and the original poly inserts. Seller only ships within Europe.
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If you're interested in machines that are almost CoCos, check out this auction for a Fujitsu FM-7.
ReplyDeletehttp://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320673726147
And, some technical info on the beast as well.
http://www.nausicaa.net/~lgreenf/fm7page.htm
Hey, that is a really lovely machine Raphael. Thanks a ton! I'll just have to blog it tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteWe all know about the Sinclair Spectrums, Amstrad CPCs and Acorn BBC B's, but it's easy to forget that early 80s Britain was home to a plethora of competing homegrown micros, like the Grundy Newbrain, Jupiter ACE and Oric-1. The Dragon 32 was another (though as you point out Gnome, it was pretty much a CoCo).
ReplyDeleteAccording to my copy of Digital Retro, the Dragon was often sold to famers with a bundled agricultural management program entitled Farm Fax. And when Dragon Data eventually folded, the Dragon 32 and 64 inventory was snapped up by a Spanish company that then gave away the computers to Spanish schools. Rather a sad demise, really.
Now, that's an impressive bit of information. I am of course referring to the farmer's bundle; a brilliant idea in order to enlighten the masses (and sell a few micros) apparently. Also, I must confess my general love for the multitude of British micros of the era. Each was quite unique and sported a variety of even more unique games. As for Dragon Data, well, they did do quite a job related to their size and I do remember enjoying the odd issue of Dragon User back when I hadn't even seen a Dragon 32.
ReplyDeleteDragon Data started as the accounts dept of a Welsh toy company that was streamlined and efficient enough to process the accounts of other small companies - largely because they had invested in computers. Then the microcomputer boom hit and before you know it, they were MAKING computers themselves. And they did pretty good - although it was completely unsustainable to have so many competing makes and models in the long run :D
ReplyDeleteI think the being sold to farmers thing was an attempt by the then Thatcher govt to make UK farmers more self-sufficient and profitable. It didn't work. You'd have to change some EU regulations for that to happen.
Once again, thanks for the excellent info dear Bob.
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