The Dragon 32 and Dragon 64 are home computers that were built in the 1980s. The Dragons are very similar to the TRS-80 Color Computer, and were produced for the European market by Dragon Data, Ltd., initially in Swansea, Wales before moving to Port Talbot, Wales and by Eurohard S.A. in Casar de Cáceres, Spain, and for the US market by Tano of New Orleans, Louisiana. The model numbers reflect the primary difference between the two machines, which have 32 and 64 kilobytes of RAM, respectively.
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of Tandy Radio Shack, Z80 [microprocessor]. It is one of the earliest mass-produced and mass-marketed retail home computers.
The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Computer is a completely different, incompatible system and a radical departure in design and compatibility with its Motorola 6809E processor rather than the Zilog Z80 earlier models were built around.
Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first version of BASIC published by Microsoft as well as the first high-level programming language available for the Altair 8800 microcomputer.
Centipede is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade game developed and published by Atari, Inc. Designed by Dona Bailey and Ed Logg, it was one of the most commercially successful games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the first with a significant female player base. The primary objective is to shoot all the segments of a centipede that winds down the playing field. An arcade sequel, Millipede, followed in 1982.
The Tandy 2000 is a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in September 1983 based on the 8 MHz Intel 80186 microprocessor running MS-DOS. By comparison, the IBM PC XT used the older 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor, and the IBM PC/AT would later use the newer 6 MHz Intel 80286. Due to the 16-bit-wide data bus and more efficient instruction decoding of the 80186, the Tandy 2000 ran significantly faster than other PC compatibles, and slightly faster than the PC AT. The Tandy 2000 was the company's first computer built around an Intel x86 series microprocessor; previous models used the Zilog Z80 and Motorola 6809 CPUs.
Bosconian is a multidirectional scrolling shooter arcade game which was developed and released by Namco in Japan in 1981. In North America, it was manufactured and distributed by Midway Games. The goal of the game is to earn as many points as possible by destroying enemy missiles and bases using a ship which shoots from both the front and back. Bosconian became the first shoot 'em up game to feature diagonal movement.
The Rainbow was a monthly magazine for the TRS-80 Color Computer by the Tandy Corporation. It was started by Lawrence C. Falk and was published from July 1981 to May 1993 by Falk's company, Falsoft, which was based in Prospect, Kentucky.
Time Bandit is an action-adventure game written for the TRS-80 Model I by Bill Dunlevy and Harry Lafnear and published by MichTron in 1983. It was ported to the TRS-80 Color Computer and Dragon 32, but enjoyed its greatest popularity several years later as an early release for the Atari ST. It was also released for the pseudo-PC-compatible Sanyo MBC-55x with 8-color display. Amiga and MS-DOS versions were ported by Timothy Purves.
Dungeons of Daggorath is one of the first real-time, first-person perspective role-playing video games. It was produced by DynaMicro for the TRS-80 Color Computer in 1983. A sequel, Castle of Tharoggad, was released in 1988.
Microdeal was a British software company which operated during the 1980s and early 1990s from its base at Truro Road in the town of St Austell, Cornwall. The company, founded by John Symes was one of the major producers of games and other software for the 8-bit home computers of the time, in particular the Dragon 32 and the similar Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer ("CoCo").
Spectral Associates was an American maker of computer games for the TRS-80 Color Computer. It was founded in 1980 and was defunct as sometime in the late 1980s. Spectral Associates sold their software through Radio Shack and via direct sales. It was a very prolific game company for the TRS-80 Color Computer I and II in its heyday.
Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented computers of the time such as those running CP/M or the IBM PC, and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporary business computers. Their most common uses were playing video games, but they were also regularly used for word processing and programming.
Trek-80 is a text-based video game written by Steve Dompier in 1976 and sold by Processor Technology for their Sol-20 computer and suitable S-100 bus machines.
Voyager I: Sabotage of the Robot Ship is a computer game designed and programmed by William D. Volk, and published by the Microcomputer Games division of Avalon Hill. It was originally released for the Apple II in 1981, with later versions for the Atari 8-bit family, TRS-80 Color Computer, TRS-80, and Commodore PET.
Protector II is a video game written by Mike Potter for the Atari 8-bit family and published by Synapse Software in 1982. It is a sequel to 1981's Protector; both games are horizontally scrolling shooters inspired by Defender. Protector II was ported to the Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, and TRS-80 Color Computer.
The Sands of Egypt is a 1982 graphic adventure game written by James Garon, Ralph Burris, and Steve Bjork of Datasoft for the TRS-80 Color Computer. It was licensed to Tandy Corporation and was the first disk-only game for the Color Computer sold by RadioShack. Ports to the Atari 8-bit family in 1982 and Apple II in 1983 were published by Datasoft. Set in 1893, the game follows a British explorer and archaeologist who is lost in the desert. Text commands are entered in the lower half of the screen, while a sometimes animated image of the current location is displayed in the upper half.
Danger Ranger is a non-scrolling platform game designed by Ken Kalish and published in 1983 by Microdeal for the Dragon 32/64 and TRS-80 Color Computer. The game was ported to the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore 64 by Rita Jay in 1984.
