Dragon's Lair cab' replica... by Luca

[po|ng]

@MacDLSA

Hi Marco.. Nice to finally "meet" you. We've never officially presented, but I often looked at your posts/pics/videos on the web.
Your gameroom is basically as mine would be, if I had one: A Dragon's Lair cab for Dragon's Lair (and other one-button lasergames when wanted), a MAME cab with a lot of buttons for the other arcade games, and various working retro consoles/computers ready to use. It just lacks a Space Ace cab to be absolutely complete (it was terrific to see the "Bluth's brothers" singing side by side in the arcades in the 80's.) .

I remember I spent a lot of time between 2002 and 2005, trying to reproduce the perfect DL cab plans. In 2005 I was running out of time, so I had to build mine. In that moment I think the plans "splitted" in two versions: the last one I gave to Igor and the one I used to build my cab. If you look closely, you can notice that the monitor on my cab is mounted a bit more "vertically", and the speakers panel is a bit more forward than on the original cab. I don't remember why I changed this two things before start building, and I'm afraid it was a mistake. Your DL cab instead was probably built using the other version of the plans (I don't know if Igor changed something on it) and it's apparently authentic to the USA one.. Very nice job!

The reason I decided to build an Atari cab was not because I was missing DL as the game itself. It was yet available in a bunch of formats, and even emulable via Daphne/laserdiscs. What I was really missing was DL as the whole thing it used to be.
That big black cab, it's artworks, it's blue score/lives screens, and it's big yellow Atari logo.
When I was 7, that sticker made me think DL was a game by Atari, and so I became sure that an Atari 2600 cartridge of DL not only had to exist, but even that it had the same audio and visuals of the arcade version (!!!).. I looked around in every shop, asking for this phantomatic cartridge for an entire summer.. Then, luckly, I surrender..
This memory is enough for me to always choose the Atari sticker instead of the hardware scoreboard (even if sometimes I have to activate the on-screen scoreboard overlay..  )

But maybe I was not completely wrong about DL on Atari 2600..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wwzSg92HYo&list=UUhqt2ze5DGeZRn2ruRLhoCw&index=45&feature=plcp
Seriously, what's this thing?

[MacDLSA]

Pleased to meet you, Luca !
Thanks for your words about my LITTLE gameroom... it's a very "tiny" thing compared to the "Royal Palaces" you could find around here in DLF... but I am very satisfied !
Yeah, this DL cab does "support" one-button games BUT also some other like CliffHanger (foot buttons are 1p & 2p start, just like in its original arcade cab). There are some limitations due to the overscan video output of PC's VGA... both DL and SA works this way also in their original hardware, and even Cliffy, but, for example, Esh's does not: so if I try to play it then the display cut out overlayed upper/lower counters of visible part of the screen. Of course it doesn't matter to me, as my target was the "Bluth's brothers" (nice!! Never heard before but it sounds great !!) and their "little brother" Time Warp, too.
Heh, a Space Ace cab... cannot find the place to set it, but if there were I think I'd took (or even built ) a Sega Rally Championship !
Oh, never mind there were other "revision(s)" of your measurements... my cab is built almost entirely following Igor's (so also yours) and with some little modifies I made measurings Matteo's (I think you know him) european DL & SA cabinets . Regarding Teo I want to say that Daphne's euro captures are taken from his laserdiscs... yeah, we made the captures, he helped Mark Broadhead (writer of Daphne drivers) with the emulation, I made some video editing works...
Unfortunately they're not "arcade perfect" but I can say it's kinda' 95% !

VCS 2600 Dragon's Lair ?
Take a look at the pic of my avatar...

I had been workin' around it since years... but I stopped, due to several other priorities...
The project is still running, although I've to wait some more time...
This clip is how it would have to be the drawbridge screen, but no more things... (Digital Leisure HQ is, of course, fully informed ).

PANT! Writing on this iPhone touchkeys is SO frustrating , so we talk again later, dude !

Byee for now!