*BETA COPY*
Please find below a first draft of the Dragon Data timeline.
| Late
1981 |
Dragon Data concept is born, from the parent company Mettoy (Corgi etc.). |
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| Mid-Summer
1982 |
Rumors of Dragon Data hit the public. | |||
| August
1982 |
1)
Dragon 32 is released. 2) Mettoy appear to be in financial difficulty. |
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| October
1982 |
Already the company is in financial difficulty and Managing Director, Mr. Tony Clarke, persuades financial institutions into a re-finance of Dragon Data. This left Mettoy with only a 15.5% shareholding after the Welsh Development Agency bought 23% and Pru-tech (the high-tech investment division of Prudential Insurance) the largest holding with 42%. With new money being ploughed in, Dragon Data would be able to contract out work (to Race Electronics who also built BBC's for Acorn), enabling them to build up the production rate to come closer to meeting the high demand for their product. | |||
| Late
1982 |
As part of the finance deal with the Welsh Development Agency, Dragon Data would prepare to move to a larger factory with increased manufacturing capacity compared to the current site within Mettoy - this being the infamous factory at Kenfig near Port Talbot. | |||
| March
1983 |
The move to the new premises was complete and 5,000 Dragons rolled off the production line every week, and this was to be increased to 10,000 units - Dragon Data rather naively believing that sales would continue strongly during the summer as they had on the run-up to Christmas. Although extra capacity did allow Dragon Data to extend its range and a formidable hardware expansion was planned for the rest of '83. |
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| April
1983 |
1)
Forty Thousand Dragon 32s had been sold, Dragon Data had become the
largest privately owned company in Wales and high-street shops were
queuing up to stock the popular machine; Dixons, Comet and Spectrum
joining Boots as a Dragon retailer though the stationers WH Smith and
John Menzies both gave Dragon Data the thumbs down, complaining they
had enough on their plate with the Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Oric.
Dragon Data weren't too worried as it wasn't in their interests to have
too many retailers competing on price, and with the capacity at the
plant not large enough for demand others were only receiving a restricted
allocation. More information with an interview with Tony Clarke (Dragon User - July 83). |
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| May
1983 |
64K upgrade board for the Dragon 32 became a main board swap at an increased cost of £75, the board also being used in the newly announced Dragon 64 which was to priced at £250-300 but with extras such as an RS232 interface included. | |||
| June
1983 |
Dragon Data were now going to offer a main board swap for the 32K - 64K upgrade, as before, but this would be a full Dragon 64 main board with RS232 interface and second Basic ROM onboard. (the first ROM was Dragon 32 mode, and the second a Dragon 64 mode with Basic occupying the upper 16K of 64K RAM). To facilitate the use of the serial port, service agents would also change the bottom half of the 32's molding (adding an extra hole), at a total cost of £100 for the upgrade; the Dragon 64 was now expected to cost less than £275. | |||
| July
1983 |
From that point the US was Dragon Data's goal and it had been decided that the Tano Corporation of New Orleans would be the Dragon manufacturer and distributor for the Americas and Caribbean Basin. The Dragon 64 would be available in the US from August at a cost of $399, with the first few thousand machines being made in Wales and the rest in the US once Tano's production was up to speed. | |||
| August
1983 |
Dragon 64 was launched on the 26th with a retail price of $399 in the US and £225 in the UK where it could be bought from early September, but the US package would also include a much improved manual, spreadsheet, mail-merge and Telewriter 64 word processor). A statement by Dragon Data's marketing director Richard Wadman (who also wrote the manuals) told that this was due to that the US TV circuitry was easier to construct than for the UK, and so it could be done more quickly, but apart from this the European and American machines would be identical. | |||
| September
1983 |
1)
Tano's production of the Dragon begins. 2) The thought that sales would continue through spring and summer at the level as at Christmas had proved to be a major misjudgment and it came as no surprise to industry analysts when Managing Director Tony Clarke was asked to resign by the shareholders - of course it was reported to the public that he had "previously indicated to the board that he wished to resign for personal resigns". 3) The shareholders asked GEC (the largest electrical company in the UK) to provide a senior executive to become the new chief executive of Dragon Data on "temporary secondment", and they duly obliged with Brian Moore appointed to the post on September 12th, until a new business plan for the company had been worked out - though Brian could not put a time on this. It was no shock decision to appoint a GEC executive - Prutech who held 42% of Dragon shares were also the major investor in GEC - but he was suitable for the job, moving from a deputy managing directorship post at a GEC subsidiary specializing in microprocessor controlled heating and ventilation systems, together with his experience in general electronic engineering, financial management and business applications for computers. |
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| October
1983 |
1)
Tano's production was up to capacity of the 48,000 square foot new plant
where the lines were housed. 2) First rumors of the Dragon 128 are made - Featuring dual 6809 processors, a numeric keypad, 128K ram and OS9 selectable on power-up it seemed as if both companies had got their act together and times looked rosy. |
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| October
1983 |
Not Yet Complete - Sorry... | |||
Acknowledgements: David Linsley - 'Potted History'.
Dragon User