You could argue long and hard about how my beloved Dragon 32 had a proper keyboard, loads of interfaces and the like, but the bottom line was that there simply weren't any high profile games on the machine vs the Sinclair Spectrum.

In the dim and distance past (circa 1984) two of the most popular games for the Speccy were Manic Miner and JetSet Willy. Now we all know the history of these seminal titles, but most people never even knew that they were finally converted to a whole host of machines in late '84-early '85. Finally us non-speccy owners could enjoy Matt Smiths quirky and fabulous platformers without the need to beg our RubberKeyed owning friends of a shot by going to their houses after school. So now BBC, CBM64, MSX, Oric (??) and Dragon users had the tapes. I remember the glee of seeing those Software Projects adverts in my main read during the period, Computer and Video Games, for and waiting for the games to be available to buy at the princely sum of £5.95. So, finally Manic Miner made it the shops (written by a bloke called Roy Coates).

I wasn't the first person with a Dragon at our school to get it, that honour goes to John Fernside, who by a spectacular coincidence was 8 days older than me. I can't remember why we had a selection of computers setup up in one of the Science Labs at school in November 1984, but this is where I saw it for the first time, god did I want that Cassette. So much so in fact that I nicked it from him just before Dinnertime had finished and before my French lesson started. I clearly wasn't thinking straight, how was I going to use it and give him it back without seeming like a little theiving bastard. It never got that far however, he grassed me up. Knowing that I was the only other Dragon User within our realm at school, he reported me to the head of year. I got called out of French (good way of skipping class ) and confronted with the question 'Did you take John's computer game ??', meekly I replied, 'I thought he said I could borrow it', a blantant lie, but a good one. I can't recall anymore of the 'discussion' but it ended with me handing over the tape and having to go back into French. I was 14, this was my first crime.

Ah, you thought the story had ended, but no there's more. After the mess above, my chances of getting a borrow of Mr. Fernside's Copy were less than zero, I don't even remember ever talking to the guy again !! So my next chance to get hold of the game lay sqaurely with Xmas and my Parents buying it for me. A certain amount of pestering saw the purchase go through. How did I know this before Xmas you ask ? Arh, that'll be due to me finding my Xmas pressies in my Dad's wardrobe (same place every year, upto that point), the only problem here was they had already been wrapped up.

So my quandry, I know the game is in the house, all I need is for the following to occur. Me left in the house on my own (i.e. Dad at work, Mum gone Shopping, Sister at a friends). Once that happened, it was with very nimble fingers I extracted the Cassette Box from the wrapping paper by un-doing just one end and sliding it out. Done. Get the Dragon powered up (one switch pressed, machine ready in less than 5 seconds). Tape in the WHsmiths cassette recorder, CLOADM on the Dragon, Press Play on the Tape. Now I know tapes took a while to load, but when you're not supposed to be doing something the seconds seem to drag on for ever !!! Finally after what seemed like 10mins it was loaded. But what's this, enter code combination ??? Arh, yes the Dragon version of Manic Miner had the colour code protection scheme that Speccy owners had with JetSet Willy. After that is was up and running. Now I had to act fast,I knew my Mum would be back any minute, so I had to stop myself from having a quick go and instead rewind the tape and get the box back in the wrapping paper and deposited back from wence it came. I was coming down the stairs as my Mum came in the door, phew that was close !!

Finally I was able to sit in our Extension and play Manic Miner on my Dragon, Mum clearly un-aware what had happened as all those games look the same to her

Coming soon:
Part Two - JetSet Willy Arrives, and I take off for the day to meet an older Women

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