The DraCo/Dracovision, the first "true" Amiga clone

[amigadave]

Love that kind of historical posting.  Were you part of the team, or just friends with one or more of them?

I have the VLab Motion and Toccatta cards and Movie Shop software, but have never set it up to try them out yet.  Hopefully before the end of the year I will try them out (after having them for several years it would be about time :lol: )

It was amazing what they created and according to a few reviews, it was superior in some ways to NewTek's Video Toaster/Flyer system.  I know that the Draco was much more advanced than my VLab Motion, but it is still incredible what was accomplished on the A2000's ZorroII bus.

[amigadave]

Agreed.  And the price was way too high.  I don't think Toaster cost that must.  I could look back at my Amiga magazines...  But if you (Gulliver) are in love with it thats fine.  Whatever makes one happy.

I remember the Draco was expensive, but don't think it was any more than a complete A4000 w/accelerator and NewTek Video Toaster & Flyer cards installed in it.  Actually, I think it was a good deal cheaper, but both were out of my price range back then.  

I know for sure that the VLab Motion card was much cheaper than the Toaster & Flyer card combo and the VLab Motion claimed to work without the need of any TBC's to work with VCR inputs, so that would have been another savings.  

The biggest advantage of the VLab Motion and the Draco was that they could work with both NTSC and PAL video formats, which the Toaster/Flyer could not.  NewTek made a huge mistake by not making a PAL version of the Toaster & Flyer cards.  After all, the number of Amiga users that live in areas that use the PAL video standard out number the Amiga users in areas that use NTSC and NewTek could have possibly almost doubled their sales, which would have helped them even now, as the number of LightWave users would be much greater as well.

Edit:  It is a bit of a stretch to call the Draco a "true" Amiga clone, as it did not have the Amiga's three custom chips and could NOT run most of the Amiga software and games available then, or now.  I wonder what happened to most of those Draco systems after the EU TV stations stopped using them and moved on to something more advanced?

[amigadave]

@amigadave

Regarding differences between classic and Draco...I would sometimes get software on a Draco DRDD or DRHD formatted disk. All I had to do was run the Draco driver on the A4000 to access the disks.
Most of the dedicated graphics packages of software for Draco were backward compatible with the A4000. In fact, that was part of what I tested. At the time they were looking at making some of the Draco software available for the 68k machines running Movieshop, but I think the thrust had already changed to focus on Casablanca by then.
Dunno if the general public saw most of these addons like Monument Designer and such for classic Amiga, but they were quite advanced for their time, imo.

Added: Yes, the Time Base correction with VlabMotion worked quite well actually.

#6

I don't disagree that much of the software for the Draco could run on an A4000 with a VLab Motion card and Toccatta card, but for the Draco to be considered a "true" Amiga clone, I would expect the Draco to be able to run most Amiga software, certainly much more than just the software that does not access the Amiga's custom chips.

So, to compare the Draco to the MiniMig as the original poster did and claim that the Draco was the first "true" Amiga clone, is not accurate in my point of view.

I think the Draco and Casablanca were both great products and sold well in their time, but their focus was video production and an early kind of TIVO, not being an Amiga clone to run Amiga software.

[amigadave]

Nice but Amiga 1000 compatible phoenix motherboard was shipping in late 1990... so beats it by at least 4 years.

Good point!