When the Dragon Got a Magazine of Its Own: The First Issue of Dragon User
In 1982 I was given a Dragon 32 for my 13th birthday. In May 1983 the first issue of Dragon User came out in Britain, billing itself as the UK's first monthly magazine devoted entirely to Dragon owners. I was living in Israel, and that issue never reached me at the time. Now I've leafed through a scan and asked myself what would have caught the eye of a 13-year-old sitting in front of a Dragon. In the series "What Dragon Owners Were Reading" I'll work through the issues one by one. Here's where it begins.
What Things Cost Back Then
The issue itself cost 60p. In an advert from Premier Microsystems, a new Dragon 32 was on sale for £199.50 including VAT, plus £3 postage. The Telewriter word processor cost £49.95, and the game Donkey King was £8. And for anyone dreaming of a disk drive? According to the news section, a system with a single drive, interface and operating system was set to cost £275. That's more than the computer itself.
The Factory in Wales
A news item reports that production had moved to a new factory in Kenfig, near Port Talbot. At the time they were making just under 5,000 computers a week, and the managing director, Tony Clarke, talked of reaching 10,000. Another item promised a new computer priced at around £400, to compete with the BBC Model B.
In the Red Corner
Boris Allan compared the Dragon with the Spectrum, the Vic20 and the BBC. He praised the 6809 processor, which in his view was the best 8-bit chip around. On the other hand, he complained that in Dragon BASIC spaces sometimes matter and sometimes don't.
Cassette Woes
The letters page is almost entirely about cassettes. One reader with a cheap £5 tape recorder found that saving failed because the motor came up to speed too slowly. His fix: start the recorder by hand before pressing Enter. He also stops every ten minutes to save whatever he's typed in. Advice that would have spared me quite a bit of frustration.
Interview: Where's the British Software?
John Symes of Microdeal in Cornwall said that most of the games he markets are conversions of American games written for the Tandy. He also laid the blame on the computer's manufacturer: "Dragon has been of no help whatsoever to any of the software houses". Later in the interview he called on British programmers to start writing their own.
Landing on the Moon
For those who enjoyed typing in programs from the magazine, the issue included Moonbase Alpha by David Windle. In the game you have to land a shuttle on the landing pad, with only 200 units of fuel. And in this month's competition you could win an Epson MX80F/T III printer.
Dragon User, issue 1, May 1983, Sunshine Publications. Scan courtesy of archive.org.
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