Dragon 32 64
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 32KB 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 beige 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.
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.
References
- Vander Reyden, John (1983). Dragon 32 programmer's reference guide. Melbourne House. ISBN 0-86161-134-9.
