Welcome to the DRAGON Data Archive


This site is dedicated to one of the many British small micro companies that never made it. The early years of mass home computing (1980-85) were the 'golden years' never to be repeated, with so many companies with so many products but the Dragon was where it all began for me. Whilst all around me where ZX Spectrums with it's fantastic game library the Dragon still won for me with it's better BASIC and 'professional' keyboard. The rest is history… so please feel free to browse around and take a look at what was Dragon Data and their products.

All comments, corrections, additional information, pictures etc. is always greatly appreciated, please email:

Please use a Dragon related subject mater otherwise it might get deleted


Contact and Security

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email:
Please use a Dragon related subject mater, otherwise it might get deleted.

Facebook:
For more regular updates, see whats coming and behind the scenes on Facebook

Regards, Richard




Finds and News
28 Sept 24
Pictures and scans from a folder kept by Brian Moore (MD) that contains samples from the advertising agency Oakley Young Associates (OYA).  Most of the items were leaflets and software covers but the standout items were prints of the artist impressions of the Alpha and Beta prototypes, sample photo for the D64 box and concept art/photo for the Dragon 64/OS9 brochure.
26 Sept 24
It's that time of year and the Dragon Meet will soon be upon us.  A great opportunity to meet other Dragon and 68xx enthusiasts.  Please join the Dragon Facebook group to find out more and get involved.
See you there : Cambridge Museum of Technology, Oct 12th/13th 2024.
Dragon Meet 2024
22 August 24
The Dragon 64 Supplement and the FINLUX version are now available.
6 August 24
Dealer application pack is now available.
The pack contained a number great items including the dealer price list, confirming for the first time the dealer markup (excluding the major players, Dixons etc.).  Along with new scans of a number of brochures.
5 August 24
Join me on Facebook for more regular updates, see whats coming and behind the scenes.
19 July 24
Concept artwork for the Dragon Alpha and Professional now available.
13 July 24
Q&A with Ian Coleman who was responsible for some of the fantastic cover art on Dragon Data's software
11 July 24
Make over of the History section where the all the people in the Gallery section and Quotes have been merged into a new People section.  Any dead links, please let me know.
2 May 24
Dragon Data internal repair document for the Dragon 32 now available.
26 April 24
Two Touchmaster leaflets add, NEW! revolutionary peripheral and Newflash (Software).
25 April 24
An update to the Peaksoft page with a letter, containing a nugget of info on Harry buying items from Touchmaster.
21 April 24
Dragon Finlux brochure now available.
19 April 24
David Farrugia, of Malta's 'Dragon Computers and Software' shop fame has kindly done a Q&A on his time with the Dragon. It provides an insight into to what was happening at the time and how different doing business was back then. You can read the article here.
16 April 24
Eurohard versions of the Introduction to Dragon DOS and Information for Machine Code Users.
15 April 24
Two new Eurohard adverts, How to Hunt a Dragon and New Dragon 200.
14 April 24
Dragon Wolrd Magazines now available, along with a load of associated leaflets that came with the mags.  These are new higher quality versions to what have been previously available.
7 April 24
Dragon Data Retail Price List from September 1983 and a 16 page Touchmaster software catalogue  now available  in adverts.
4 April 24
Eurohard Dragon 200 manual 'Amaestra tu Dragon' (Tame your Dragon)  now available.  A very simple guide to BASIC, a complement to the Dragon 200 manual.
1 April 24
Dragon FINLUX BASIC handbook now available.
27 Mar 24
Pictures of a Tano show stand in the 80s, in the gallery.
24 Mar 24
Dragon 200 reference/BASIC manual now available.
23 Mar 24
Spanish version of the BASIC manual now available.
20 Mar 24
The lesser spotted Dragon Finlux appears in the wild and we have pics!
19 Mar 24
4 new Adverts with additional info.
14 Mar 24
5 new Spanish leaflets/brochures from IDS and Eurohard in Adverts
9 Mar 24
Updates in the Gallery, including pictures of Duncan Smeed and of all the recent Dragon meets.
8 Dec 23
4 Period news report videos now available, with great Dragon 32 production shots and interviews with Brian Moore and Richard Wadman.
2 Dec 23
The Dragon 32 Fire Your Imagination brochure is now available, along with the German version (Your Strong Companion Into The Computer Age).
2 Nov 23
The Archive gets the fantastic opportunity to meet Brian Moore (MD),  read the interview.

Brian Moore (2023)
29 Dec 22
National Archives
The Dragon Data Archive pays a vist to the National Archives to investigate the WDA files for Dragon Data records.
26 May 21
The DragonDOS source code is now available
26 Jan 21
Richard Wadman the Sales Marketing director at Dragon Data sadly passed away on November 18th 2020. He caught Covid in hospital after being admitted following a fall.  Gallery updated with pcitures.
07 Nov 20
Norwegian and Italian versions of the BASIC manual scanned, PDFd and available for download.
22 Feb 20
magazine article for Jordi Palet the Director of R&D of Eurohard. Also includes a picture of Ramon Benedito, the designer of the Dragon 200 case.
16 Feb 20
The D64 circuit diagram for CPU and supporting chips has been updated after a missing link on the 6847 was found in the fold of the diagram.  Thx John & Phill.
15 Feb 20
Created a video to help diagnose memory faults on Dragon 32's
02 Jan 20
PDF of the very rare LOGO cartridge manual has been finished and is available for download, along with the ROM image for the Dragon Data and Eurhard versions.
01 Jan 20
Despite working on Dragon project throughout the year, contributing to the Dragon Archive and posting in the Dragon FaceBook group etc. but sadly neglecting here.
So what better way to start the year with a new game 'Tank Commander'. A 1983/84 project from myself and my brother, and available for download.
13 June 19
2 New Dragon 32 circuit diagrams uploade and available for download here.  These are still far from the best, if you have anything better please do get in contact.
22 Mar 19
All 4 diagrams have been updated with 2 additional quality Dragon 64 circuit diagrams added and available for download (Set 4).
22 Mar 19
2 high quality Dragon 64 circuit diagrams cleaned, restored and available for download (Set 4).
29 Aug 18
Remastered BASIC manual now avaialble for download
Originally PDF'd the manual around 12 years ago now and when opened it recently, I discovered that over the years Adobe had changed the handling of embedded fonts, resulting in numerous formatting issues. So I've taken the opportunity to to remaster it. Numerous improvements to the layout, fixed the formatting issues with recent Adobe Acrobat and now with slashed zeros :-)
Thanks to Tony Jewell for doing the proofread.
28 Aug 18
Dragon Magic book now avaialble for download
22 May 18
5 TANO items, inc. leaflet, Press Release and Dealer Price Lists have been added into the adverts section.
10 May 18
7 FarmFax leaflets and brochures have been added into the adverts section.
23 June 18
** All the Dragons **

On 16th June 2018 at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge, the stars aligned in the constellation of Draco and every known Dragon variant made by Dragon Data and Eurohard came together for the first time in the same place.
13 June 18
Dragon Data posters has been updated and now includes 12 300dpi scans of original posters, ready to download and print!
04 June 18
Dragon Meet 2018 Cambridge logo
Its that's time of year for a Dragon meet at the Centre for Computing History museum in Cambridge, on the 16th June 2018.  There will loads of stuff on display and to play with, from original rarities through to new developments like the Dragon MMC card interface.  If all the planets align there be should be member of the Dragon Data dev. team and for the first time in one place, all the known production and prototype machine variants, from the Dragon Pippin (D32 prototype) through the Eurohard MSX prototype.



And an update... Restored from a full size A1 'white copy' a Dragon 64 schematic for the
CPU and Support Chips 39MB ZIP
21 October 17
The Information Machine Code Users is now available for download. Thanks to Geoff Campbell for the original scan
17 October 17

The Dragon Data Archive makes a pilgrimage to the former Dragon Data factory at Kenfig, Port Talbot.

16 October 17

Remastered the pcitures outside the Kenfig factory and Kevin Stephens outside the factory. Again thanks Gareth Tuttiett for the original photos.

11 October 17

The Machine Code Start Pack (9MB) is now available for download, now larger and better colour. Again thanks Gareth Tuttiett

06 October 17

It's been 5 years in the making......
The
Dragon MMC has finally been released!

22 September 17

Digging through archive backlog finds the Errata To BASIC Programming scanned from Gareth Tuttiett's copy

11 July 17

Another item from Duncan Smeed, letters to the publisher in reference to Inside The Dragon

26 June 17

Found some unprocessed items from my visits to Duncan Smeed years ago.  First of those items to get processed and restored is a document describing the changes required to OS9 for the Dragon 128 (Beta) prototype.

24 June 17

DragonData.co.uk has new hosting so a...

BBig Thanks to...

Simon of the archive.worldofdragon.org for letting me piggyback off his site all these years.

22 June 17

The first Dragon (and 6809) meet in over 20 years occured at The Centre for Computing History, see the pics here.

22 June 10

The Dragon presence at the VCF doesn't go unoticed at The Register. Not the worlds best comment, or as Steve C put it: The Dragon takes a bashing on the first page

21 June 10

The Dragon Data archive is thrust into the real world and help show the world the way of the Dragon at the Vintage Computer Festival @ Bletchley Park, pics and more info here.

11 April 06

John has been very busy scanning in the circuit diagrams of the Beta prototype. The keyboard and the first sheet has been done. Here they are.

27 Mar 06

MORE Beta Pics!!

The first public pictures a complete Beta Prototype.

4 Jan 06

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

27 Mar 06

MORE Beta Pics!!

The first public pictures a complete Beta Prototype.

The Beta gets its first run out on the 'highway', allow the first real test of the graphics modes, disk drive etc... and all appears well. All enabled by some great work on the keyboard interface.

26 Sept 05

THE BETA ROARS!!

After 20 years of silence the Dragon Beta (128) roars into life and boots into OS-9, so despite all the rumours it does/did actually work!! See the Pics...

13 Nov 05

Lack of updates.... sorry about this but the Dragon Beta is sucking all my spare time. The machine is now rebuilt, sadly it is still refusing boot. Only the plus side it is actually running some code and setting up the PIA's but it gets no further. There appears to a fault in the memory mapping/addressing, so some reverse engineering is in progress to understand the process.

Oh, nearly forgot actualy forgot to mention that after staring at bare Alpha I have made a replica top cover, pics here.

Just to keep you happy ;o) a new Dragon Data advert.

And again on going thanks to Phill, Simon and Rob for their help.

12 Sept 05

Paul Grade who spent *many* hours running the National Dragon Users Group (NDUG) and even more helping Dragon users solve their problems has sadly passed away, I'll leave it to these quotes to say it all.....

" ..... I extend my sincere sympathies to his relatives and friends (the world over)."

"He was an extremely busy man, but never to my knowledge neglected, or failed to answer, correspondence."
Bob Smith

"Paul was one of those people who actually got his hands dirty and did things rather than sitting there and complaining that 'someone should do something'. The world would be a better place for more of his type of people. "
Tim Lomas

 

9 Sept 05

After XP SP2 the menus have been blocked by default in explorer, have now updated the menu to allow all the main titles to be clicked. This will also help other non explorer browesers.

I'll do best to get CGE UK pic's up within a couple of weeks.

BFN

18 July 05

The Dragon Data Archive is teaming up with the Dragon Archive at the Classic Gaming Expo in Croydon, London on Saturday August 13th 2005. We'll have Dragon 32 & 64's up and running for you to play on, plus the first public showing the Dragon Alpha + More, so come on down for a chat and enjoy loads of other gaming.

The Beta machine is in a serious state of resoration at the moment, i.e. not a single component on the board. Now begins the even longer process of cleaning the thousands solder pads ready for it's re-build.

19 June 05

Another visit to Duncan Smeed, or a "Dragon Time Team" as Duncan tagged it, has yielded some more great items. Duncan has *very* kindly loaded me a set of original Dragon Data Alpha (The Professional) and Beta (Drag 128) disks and stacks of source code printouts, these gems include:
  • Alpha OS9 boot disks
  • Alpha OS9 applications:
    • Dynaclac
    • Stylograph
    • Editor Assembler Debugger
    • Pascal
    • RMS
    • C Compiler
    • Sound Demo
  • Alpha DragonDOS v2.F
  • Alpha DragonDOS demo disk, with what looks like a couple of unpublished games.
  • Beta OS9 Boot disks
  • Beta OS9 Applications:
    • C Compiler
    • Graphics Demo
    • Pascal
  • Alpha Boot ROM source.
  • Beta OS9 Level Two Source code.
The disks are currently in the process of being archived for the future. Amazingly enough, out of the 25 disks only 2 have suffered from bit rot. This is a joint project with great help from:
  • Phill Harvey-Smith
    • NitrOS-9 updates, to be made public soon:
      • Update to allow single density on track 0 (Beta format disks)., D64 and Alpha versions.
      • Update to Alpha version for improved interrupt handling.
    • MESS emulator updates, to be made public soon:
      • Update to Alpha version for improved interrupt handling.
      • Beta emulation - Very long term project but the boot screen works!
    • Creating disk images of the Alpha/Beta s/w.
  • Simon Hardy
    • Disk image testing.
    • When the Alpha MESS update has gone through and the Disk Images tested, Simon will (hopefully) be making the disk images available on his site.

10 May 05

Well months of spending my evenings fixing the Alpha has caught up and meant I had to take a serious break. Recently been working (again) with Phill Harvey-Smith, who has done some absolute *stella* work over the last few months. His work has produced:

After NitrOS9 and DOS became available it rapidly became apparent that the Dragon Alpha had intermittent problems with the floppy drives. As Phill is currently the source of any software for the Alpha it required another visit to his domain to discover where the problems lay (Floppy drives, Alpha, software, floppy creating etc. etc.) After a good poke about and a re-cal of the floppy controller and it's back in business - a massive improvement in reliability.

Also added the Dragon DOS cart circuit diagram.

2002, 2003 and 2004

Updates for 2002, 2003 and 2004.

2001 and Before

Updates for 2001 and earlier.

 

Aims and Polices of the Archive
1. To preserve the history and products of Dragon Data Ltd UK.
2. To make the archives information and pictures freely available via. this website.
3. Items/Information/Pictures etc. donated to the archive will not be used for personal gain (sold etc.) or be exploited in any way.

Also many thanks to the other Dragon/TRS-80 recourses on the web, who's information has been most invaluable in compiling this site.

Disclaimer: (1) Please not that this site is in no way owned/affiliated to Dragon Data Ltd. or Eurohard.
(2) All information is to best of my knowledge and I can not be held responsible for any loss resulting from information contained within.


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Web Contents (c) Richard Harding 2001-2024