Welcome to Dragon User — Britain's first monthly magazine devoted entirely to helping owners of Dragon computers.
It is nearly nine months since we first began to hear rumours that a little known toy company was about to launch a new home computer. At the time Sinclair was having Problems with his Spectrum computer but we still thought it unlikely that a newcomer with no experience of the market would be able to break in. Then the Dragon 32 was launched in August. It was undoubtedly a good and powerful machine. We were still sceptical. The documentation was poor and the parent toy company seemed to be in serious financial difficulties.
Dragon Data's Managing Director, Tony Clarke, has, however, managed to pull it off. Various financial institutions bought and re-financed the company which enabled it to build up the production rate to come closer to meeting the unexpectedly high demand: high street retailers and dealers accepted that the machine was going to prove popular and software houses began to include Dragon 32 material in their ranges.
Dragon owners can now look forward to a long relationship with the company. Work is being done to offer upgrades to the Basic and the memory of the Dragon 32. New, more business orientated, computers are being developed at the moment so that Dragon can offer a range of computers of different capacities at different prices, so becoming less reliant on the possible vagaries of one market.
Versions of the Dragon 32 are now being sold in many parts of the world. Later this summer a plant in the United States starts production for the American market. On top of the 100,000 Dragons which will have been sold in Britain by Christmas we can look forward to the additional support of up to 200,000 Dragons in the US.
All this means that Dragon owners can grow with their machines, can bank on the support of any number of software and hardware companies which will, in turn, offer an ever growing range of add-ons and upgrades with which we can continually improve our machines.
In Dragon User we will aim to keep you up to date with all the latest developments from Dragon, the latest software, which we will test and rate, and the latest hardware. We will, also, with your help and discoveries, learn how to make the most of the machine we already have.