24-11-2013, 09:42 PM
The Dragon 32 first appeared on the market in August 1982 and was similar in design to the Tandy/Radio Shack CoCo computer. The computer was unusually for the time fitted with a Motorola 6809E processor running at 0.89mhz (hardly speedy when compared to other offerings) and standard off the shelf chips to produce sound, video and UART requirements. Alas, due to limitations with the design, notably the lack of lower case graphics, Dragon went bust in 1984.
This particular example was to say the least of poor quality. A large amount of dirt in various places which was removed with a couple of baby wipes and inside the usual patina of dust just about covering everything in sight. The keyboard was (dirty) rotten and first order was after photographing the keyboard (handy for re-assembly) and remove all the key tops for a scrub in a detergent dosed sink of water. The plastic case had unfortunately yellowed with age and no amount of scrubbing has brought the plastic back to it's light yellow/beige original colour. I'll explore the use of hydrogen peroxide bleaches next year when the weather warms and I can use solar UV to re-bleach the plastic.
The motherboard was in very good condition and just required a basic cleanup / de-fluff. The same applies to the combination modulator / PSU at the rear of the case. The power supply lead was another matter. A previous owner had at some point tacked the power leads with PVA glue and the power connector to the computer had been badly replaced at some point to the extent that a number of live wires were exposed inside the plug. Using the ubiquitous baby wipes (really good value for money, the Sainsburys ones with a bit of elbow grease just shiftb the dirt in seconds) the power leads and transformer housing were restore back to their former glory. The power socket was re-terminated correctly and is a lot safer in operation.
No tape leads were supplied, so one was knocked up using a 5 pin 180 DIN at the computer end and a pair of mono 3.5 jack plugs for the audio along with a mono 2.5 jack plug for tape control. Re-assembly was easy, tons of room inside the case, plug in the power supply, turn on the TV, cross fingers, turn on and eugh!
The quality of the UHF output was gungy, no fault of the 1286 modulator unit, it was just a case of the LCD telly struggling with the signal presented. Some modulators work well on LCD sets and others are diabolical, there's no pattern with this (the best was a Sinclair ZX81, pin sharp) as it just boils down to the characteristics of each device. Reasonably, Dragon provide via another DIN socket a combination composite video / audio output and when a lead was knocked up the picture quality was a lot better.
Operation wise, the lack of lower case text really is a bug bear and you can understand why in some respects it didn't catch on even when provided as standard with a version of Microsoft Basic. Peripheral wise the Dragon 32 is reasonable, there is a ROM port on one side and a PIO port for stuff like FDDs along with a pair of joystick ports but compared to other stable mates like the BBC A/B or even a basic Oric 1 or Sinclair it just doesn't cut it which is a shame because the build quality is superior to the sub £150 market of the time. The latter 64 version was just that, 64k of memory and the addition of an RS232 port, and that was it. If the computer had been marketed in the late 70s as a first generation computer then yes it would probably have sold in decent enough numbers but for this particular design it was a case of too little and very much a case of too late.
Photo 1: Cleaned unit and power supply.
Photo 2: Internals, keyboard, motherboard, mod / psu boards.
Photo 3: UHF, reset, Joystick, PIO, Tape ports.
Photo 4: Power switch, D socket power port, mod / audio port.
This particular example was to say the least of poor quality. A large amount of dirt in various places which was removed with a couple of baby wipes and inside the usual patina of dust just about covering everything in sight. The keyboard was (dirty) rotten and first order was after photographing the keyboard (handy for re-assembly) and remove all the key tops for a scrub in a detergent dosed sink of water. The plastic case had unfortunately yellowed with age and no amount of scrubbing has brought the plastic back to it's light yellow/beige original colour. I'll explore the use of hydrogen peroxide bleaches next year when the weather warms and I can use solar UV to re-bleach the plastic.
The motherboard was in very good condition and just required a basic cleanup / de-fluff. The same applies to the combination modulator / PSU at the rear of the case. The power supply lead was another matter. A previous owner had at some point tacked the power leads with PVA glue and the power connector to the computer had been badly replaced at some point to the extent that a number of live wires were exposed inside the plug. Using the ubiquitous baby wipes (really good value for money, the Sainsburys ones with a bit of elbow grease just shiftb the dirt in seconds) the power leads and transformer housing were restore back to their former glory. The power socket was re-terminated correctly and is a lot safer in operation.
No tape leads were supplied, so one was knocked up using a 5 pin 180 DIN at the computer end and a pair of mono 3.5 jack plugs for the audio along with a mono 2.5 jack plug for tape control. Re-assembly was easy, tons of room inside the case, plug in the power supply, turn on the TV, cross fingers, turn on and eugh!
The quality of the UHF output was gungy, no fault of the 1286 modulator unit, it was just a case of the LCD telly struggling with the signal presented. Some modulators work well on LCD sets and others are diabolical, there's no pattern with this (the best was a Sinclair ZX81, pin sharp) as it just boils down to the characteristics of each device. Reasonably, Dragon provide via another DIN socket a combination composite video / audio output and when a lead was knocked up the picture quality was a lot better.
Operation wise, the lack of lower case text really is a bug bear and you can understand why in some respects it didn't catch on even when provided as standard with a version of Microsoft Basic. Peripheral wise the Dragon 32 is reasonable, there is a ROM port on one side and a PIO port for stuff like FDDs along with a pair of joystick ports but compared to other stable mates like the BBC A/B or even a basic Oric 1 or Sinclair it just doesn't cut it which is a shame because the build quality is superior to the sub £150 market of the time. The latter 64 version was just that, 64k of memory and the addition of an RS232 port, and that was it. If the computer had been marketed in the late 70s as a first generation computer then yes it would probably have sold in decent enough numbers but for this particular design it was a case of too little and very much a case of too late.
Photo 1: Cleaned unit and power supply.
Photo 2: Internals, keyboard, motherboard, mod / psu boards.
Photo 3: UHF, reset, Joystick, PIO, Tape ports.
Photo 4: Power switch, D socket power port, mod / audio port.
