''Dragon User'' was a British magazine for users of the

Dragon 32/64 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 m ...

computers published from 1982 by Sunshine Publications. Production of the computers themselves had ceased by 1985 but the user community remained sufficiently active to justify the magazine's continuation until 1989.

Publication

From its launch until June 1986, ''Dragon User'' appeared on the shelves of major newsagents such as

WHSmith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and ...

in a full-colour glossy picture cover. A number of different editors were involved during this initial period, including Brendon Gore, Martin Croft and John Cook. From July 1986, the magazine was available only by subscription and the cover changed to a simple red and black print with a contents listing on the front. Hereafter, ''Dragon User'' was edited by Helen Armstrong. In June 1988, publication moved from Sunshine at Little Newport Street,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

to ''Dragon Publications'', an operation set up by software producer Bob Harris specifically to continue the magazine. Helen Armstrong remained Editor. This new venture did not last long, however. By the new year, only 1500 or so of the subscribers had renewed compared to about 2400 the year before. Insufficient money was available to send any further issues to print and so the final ''Dragon User'' was the January 1989 issue. Armstrong seemed genuinely surprised by the sudden lack of interest and her final editorial column was a slightly bitter apology to the remaining user base, urging them to support the

National Dragon Users Group National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

(NDUG) and the other remaining independent ''Dragon'' publications.

Content

''Dragon User'' followed a fairly standard model for computer magazines of the time: news, software and book reviews, technical Q+A, a number of regular columns and many program listings (in those days it was common for magazines to print the text of programs written in

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

to be laboriously typed in by the reader). Special features, such as interviews with prominent figures in the software world were also quite common and of course there were many advertisements, mostly for

Microdeal 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 softwa ...

, the largest Dragon software producer. Before November 1984, the software reviews were in the form of a continuous column written by John Scriven. Thereafter, the reviews appeared in a section called "Dragonsoft" where each program was reviewed separately and given a score of 1 to 5 Dragons. Various writers contributed reviews from then on, most notably Jason Orbaum, but also established Dragon programmers like Pam D'Arcy and Roy Coates.

Regular Columns

* ''Bob Liddil's Magic Software Machine'' (Launch-June 1984) - a fantastical account of a user's adventures with his talking computer * ''Mike Gerrard's Adventure Trail'' (August 1984 - January 1989) - Reviews and tips for

text adventures '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

, a popular genre of the time. The column was eventually taken over by Mike's brother Pete * ''Expert's Arcade Arena'' (May 1986 - January 1989) - tips and cheats for realtime interactive games from an anonymous "expert" who was, in reality, Jason Orbaum. * ''Dragon Answers'' (Launch-January 1989) - technical questions and answers by Brian Cadge * ''Competition'' (Launch-January 1989) - a mathematical puzzle (to be solved by a program written in Dragon BASIC) posed by Gordon Lee. The May 1984 puzzle turned out to be of great mathematical interest and was further explored by ''Scientific American''

External links

* {{Internet Archive, dragon-user-magazine, Dragon User
Home page of Jason Orbaum, former ''Dragon User'' writer and reviewer

Home page of Mike Gerrard, now a travel writer

- Gordon Lee first proposed this puzzle in the May 1984 issue of ''Dragon User'' and it is still internationally known as "The Gordon Lee Puzzle".
''Dragon User'' Archive in www.dragon-archive.co.uk

The ''Dragon User'' DVD Project

The ''Dragon User Magazine'' Library at the Centre for Computing History
Defunct computer magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1982 Magazines disestablished in 1989 1982 establishments in the United Kingdom Home computer magazines