Vanessa (Vanessaira)

New Flash Cart Support for Dragon 32/64 Computers

A new flash cart board is coming, called the DragonMMC for the Dragon 32 & 64 line of computers.  Note this board also supports the Tandy CoCo 1 & 2 as well as the DraCo 64 line of computers.  This board is essentially a mass storage device with the ability to use an MMC card as a reliable storage medium, and as such.  Provides a good alternative for the hard to maintain floppy disk and cassette tape drives on these computers.  Here is the list of features stated from the specs page:

  • Ability to load and save files direct to the card.
  • Ability to load and save at high speed from emulator tape images (.CAS).
  • Emulation of Dragon DOS (Dragon) or RSDOS (CoCo) disk system through disk image files (.DSK/.VDK).
  • Full support for directories and subdirectories.
  • Supports FAT or FAT32 filesystem.
  • Ability to dump or “stream” tapes from real cassettes and generate emulator files (.CAS) from them. Backup your long lost files before it’s too late!
  • “Snapshot” facility allowing the user to take an image of active memory and save it onto the card for loading later.
  • Game cartridge images (.ROM) can be loaded from the card into the on-board RAM and executed as if the cartridge was directly connected to the machine.
  • Auto detects whether it is running on a Dragon or CoCo at start up and uses the correct ROM image for that machine.
  • Flashed with the latest firmware (as of October 2019). Easily upgradable from the Dragon/CoCo as new firmware is released.
  • Battery backed clock to ensure that files created have the correct dates/times and the clock is accessible from BASIC.
  • BASIC commands to allow DragonMMC integration into your own programs.
  • Retokenization command to allow exchange between Dragon & CoCo basics.

This device can be purchased from Video Game Profection’s webstore.  Note that these will be shipping from the EU, so VAT (taxes) may apply.  Base price is €89.43 before taxes.

LINKS: VideoGameProfection’s Store  –  https://www.videogameperfection.com/products/dragonmmc-flash-cartridge/

News Article  –  https://www.videogameperfection.com/2019/10/07/introducing-dragonmmc/