| 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:
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Contact and Security |
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Regards, Richard |
| Finds
and News |
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| 07 June 25 | ||||
| HQ Photos of the Dragon Professional photo shoot, for the Paul Atkinsons book 'DELETE' ((2013) now available. | ||||
| 05 June 25 | ||||
| Pictures of the archives exhibit at RefroFest 2025 now available. | ||||
| 29 April 25 | ||||
 The archive will be exhibiting at RetroFest on Saturday May 31st & Sunday June 1st at the STEAM Museum Swindon. The Professional will be on display along with other Dragon Data items, so come say hi and enjoy all things retro computer related. | ||||
| 24 Mar 25 | ||||
| An early A4 brochure 'The Family Computer to Fire Your Imagination' is now available. This is a new scan, but technically it's not new to the site, I think it got lost years ago in a hosting move. | ||||
| 23 Mar 25 | ||||
| My poster recreation from the original artwork for Nerble Force always seemed a bit odd to me with the large space at the top, so I've done a new version of the poster with the title added. Looks much more balanced now. HQ poster downloads here. | ||||
| 22 Mar 25 | ||||
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Dragon Data company registration docs now available.
They show that Dragon Data was purchased as an 'off the shelf' company and
was previously registered as 'Staple Securities Limited' prior to becoming
Dragon Data. | ||||
| 02 Mar 25 | ||||
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GEC Dragon advert from the Earls Court Computer Fair 1984
now available. Been a while since an update but have been scanning books to fill the gaps in the World of Dragon Archive. | ||||
| 30 Dec 24 | ||||
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A bit late but the pictures from the
2024
Dragon Meetup are now available. | ||||
| 14 Dec 24 | ||||
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Original design artwork for the Dragon Alpha logo now added to the bottom of
the prototype concept art
page. | ||||
| 26 Nov 24 | ||||
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I've teaken 9 of the recent original Dragon Data artwork and turned them into
A2 sized posters, to match the look
and style of the original 8 poster set. | ||||
| 12 Nov 24 | ||||
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High quality scans of 16 original
cover artwork now available, showcasing the fantastic work of the artist
Ian Coleman | ||||
| 04 Nov 24 | ||||
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Brief video showing the
Touchmaster and Dragon 32 at the PCW show 1984. | ||||
| 03 Nov 24 | ||||
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Derek Williams the
technical manager at Dragon Data gives us further instight into Dragon
products and the rejected product idea that the development team took on
next, in a Q&A. | ||||
| 18 Oct 24 | ||||
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LET YOUR IMAGINATION RUN WILD!
with the Dutch version of the
Fire Your Imagination brochure. Thanks to Ian Wellock for the donation. | ||||
| 28 Sept 24 | ||||
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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 | ||||
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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.  | ||||
| 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. | ||||
| 29 Dec 22 | ||||
 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 | ||||
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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 | ||||
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** 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. |
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| 13 June 18 | ||||
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Dragon Data posters has been updated and now includes 12 300dpi scans of original posters, ready to download and print!
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| 04 June 18 | ||||
 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 |
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| 21 October 17 | ||||
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The
Information Machine Code Users
is now available for download. Thanks to Geoff Campbell for the original scan |
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| 17 October 17 | ||||
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The Dragon Data Archive makes a pilgrimage to the former Dragon Data factory at Kenfig, Port Talbot. |
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| 16 October 17 | ||||
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Remastered the pcitures
outside the Kenfig factory and
Kevin Stephens outside the factory. Again thanks Gareth Tuttiett for the original photos. |
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| 11 October 17 | ||||
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The
Machine Code Start Pack (9MB) is now available for download, now larger and better colour. Again thanks Gareth Tuttiett |
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| 06 October 17 | ||||
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It's been 5 years
in the making...... |
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| 22 September 17 | ||||
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Digging through archive backlog finds the
Errata To BASIC Programming scanned from Gareth Tuttiett's copy |
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| 11 July 17 | ||||
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Another item from Duncan Smeed, letters to the
publisher in reference to Inside
The Dragon |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 22 June 17 | ||||
| The first Dragon (and 6809) meet in over 20 years occured at The Centre for Computing History, see the pics here. |
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| 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 |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 27 Mar 06 | ||||
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MORE Beta Pics!!
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| 4 Jan 06 | ||||
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
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| 26 Sept 05 | ||||
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THE BETA ROARS!!
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| 13 Nov 05 | ||||
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| 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.....
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| 9 Sept 05 | ||||
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| 18 July 05 | ||||
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| 19 June 05 | ||||
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| 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 | ||||
| 2001 and Before | ||||
Aims and Polices of the Archive 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. |
Software - Hardware - Publications - Adverts - History - Search Web Contents (c) Richard Harding 2001-2024 |