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

[DarthNuno]

IMPRESSIVE !!! Dragon's Lair in HD inside a cab' ... you're probably the first to do that      OK, it's just the trailer 'attract mode', but it looks great  
I know that kind of feeling -> See your fav' game "Dragon's Lair" running inside a full size Dragon's Lair Cab  
Now, hurry up to wire joystick, buttons... and ENJOY the true arcade experience  

Good job my friend  

[po|ng]

Thank you, Bruno..

I solved the problem of  AV synch by splitting the whole DL video in smaller segments, one per scene, the powering up issue by changing the CMOS battery and I wired the panel.
Dragon's Lair is now working perfectly, and Space Ace is on the way, waiting for Euro versions to be fully emulated.
The arcade experience is terrific, I just can't stop playing now!   I'm going to post a small videoclip of the game running as soon as possible..

Looking forward now for the marquee, the sidearts and the Atari sticker
(it could be nice to have a scan of the instructions sticker too, english version. Anyone can take it?)..

[arcadefever]

wowwwwwwww GREAT JOB !!!!

   VERY VERY VERY IMPRESSIVE  

[DarthNuno]

Hey po|ng  

What is the status now    

Where's the marquee ? Does the system is complete now (power up / OS boot ?)

 

[po|ng]

Hey Bruno!

The system works nicely. I can play DL, SA, and a bunch of MAME games (at least the one that don't need more than one button). The marquee and the stickers will come next. After a year of work on the cab, now I'm taking my summer holiday. I'll think about tha cab again when I'll be back in Rome, in september. For now only sun, sea, food, good wine and.. ;-)

See ya!

[DarthNuno]

Hey Pong,

I see  that your current avatar...



... is exactly the picture I need to reproduce the Atari logo sticker for my Space Ace  

Do you have a full size / high scan of  that picture  ? and/or maybe a way to get one ?

Thx Thx  

[po|ng]

Hi Bruno, how are you?

What an amazing job you're doing on your SA cab! I always read the updates.
My project instead is currently frozen due to finacial problems, I hope I can go on working on it as soon as possible.

My avatar is a thumbnail of the picture I'm going to print and put between the speakers of my repro cab. It's not a scan of the original one, it's a reproduction I made using Photoshop, trying to make it as close as possible to the original sticker (which unfortunatelyI don't own). So, I suppose it could be very similar, but surely not identical to the real one. Of course, I'm ready to send you the file, if you think it can be useful to you.

Bye!

[DarthNuno]

Great  

If you plan to print the repro, I would be happy to get one    

Hope to read some updates on your projet soon  

[po|ng]

Hope to read some updates on your projet soon  Shocked

Well, I'm a bit embarrassed.. More than 5 years passed from the last post, but I was VERY busy. Anyway, I want to end the story.
In this 5 years the cab was externally incomplete, but it worked quite well till the UVC board got broken.
I solved the problem by connecting the vga output of the motherboard directly to the screen and rebuilding the system from scratch to lower the video output frequency to 15,7KHz. Now the boot sequence is cleaner and every game can run at its native refresh rate, with no tearing effect at all.
Then the audio amplifier board got broken too..  So, the cab now works, but with no audio.
But other than boring technical stuff like this, I was waiting for some "aesthetical" enhancements to come back and post new pics..
During the last two weeks I applied the sidearts, the marquee overlay and the thee Atari logos..









I hope late is better than never..
I still got to change the monitor plexi, which is brown and not black.
I'm writing a little python app too, a kind of hidden frontend to change rom version and/or dip switches settings before the game boots.

[DarthNuno]

Better late than never  Thanks for the update and additional pictures.

[inuyaksa]

Beautiful cab, very impressive work!
Good job!
It seems like the original (american) one.
 

[po|ng]

It seems like the original (american) one.

Thanks Inuyaksa! To be honest my goal was to replicate an Euro/Atari cab, but some components like euro speaker grilles and marquee overlay were never been reproduced, so I had to mount the USA grilles and to "europeize" a USA marquee, adding the Atari logos myself.. We may say it's a kind of f "hybrid" cab. But it does the job...

[MacDLSA]

AWESOME JOB, Luca/Po|ng !!!
[sorry.. I can't resist: my Sears' Pong (1975) 
]

We've never presented... SO, I'm Marco, from Pavia, Italy .
I am "one of the others" whose built a DL cab with all the measurements you took long ago together with Igorstellar !

I also wanted to fully-reproduce an Atari cab for my Daphne machine (for the same youngness memories matters like yours' ), but my thought immediately changed... I also want(ed) to play all the U.S. versions, but I ABSOLUTELY did not want to see the on-screen-overlayed score/lives  .
That's the reason why I made some "modifies" (2007) to the shape and the "essence" of the cabinet , matching (or made it very close to) the Cinematronics DL cabinet:
_ the 2 roundings on the upper part of the shoulders, typical of Cinematronics cabs
_ the Cinematronics coin door with repro adhesive sticker (long ago Jeff Kinder sent me a couple of those stickers )
_ the score counter panel, of course placed in the middle of the audio speakers (ok, ok.. in this way I could not place an Atari adhesive, but believe me it was a necessary but "fruitful" sacrifice  !)

So, I must say that I'll never thank both you and Igor enough for your great work, 'cause without it I could have never built such a beautiful cab !
 
It all runs with a Daphne PC, which I recently "threw" into a (dead)VP932 nude chassis (and not yet well-fixed); no 15khz RGB out because my previous ATI 9250 blew in a black cloud, so I replaced it with another ATI which is connected with a poor (but litterally enough for LaserDiscGame purposes) cvbs out to the 20" Samsung CRT TV tube.

And... incredible but true: seems that the "famous" Philips VP932 curse did not have affected this case, 'cause it works GREAT since months... !
 
Could we think for a DEFINITIVE "curse-free" situation or have I to wait for a complete "guru meditation" ? 

[inuyaksa]

Hi Marco, your cab is great!
I love the original LED scoreboard, I'm sorry that SIDAM versions substituited with a genlock pcb.
Very nice your idea to use an empty laserdisc case for computer.

I think curse has defeated!
 

[MacDLSA]

Thanks Inuyaksa !
I have to repeat that without Luca's measurements I could have never built it !

...SIDAM versions substituited with a genlock pcb

Oh, I love "our" BLUE SCREEN, typical of the Atari (and so, the Sidam's) revisions'.
It owns a wild sort of "something fascinating"... but, as usual, despised by our "overseas cousins"   !