Okay , here goes ...
I bought a mame cabinet from
www.dreamhomearcades.com , owner David Lewis.
I am buying this cabinet for my little brother, Aaron, age 32, who has Autism.
Aaron breathes, sleeps, dreams video games. I enjoy them also but mostly it’s for him.
Let me say, I am not rich; I am not a pimp, a drug dealer or even a felon. This was a big big big purchase for our family. Members of my family currently drive cars that cost less than this cabinet. In fact, David took pity on me and gave me a discount and set me up on payments.
On a sad note, we recently lost our dad to cancer in OCT. '09. So I wanted a gift for Aaron’s birthday, that was so over the top, so awesome, something with that WOW FACTOR. Something that can make a guy forget his troubles, even for just a while.
Why did I go with www.dreamhomearcade.com ? 1. For Aaron, it need to be a arcade machine ... While Aaron knows his way around a PC , we didn’t want a keyboard , a mouse , a cd player , we wanted a arcade machine. It had to have that feel, look, and balance. Also everything needed to work perfectly on arrival. I didn’t want to load any ROMs, find any .chd files, configure any front-end or game. At the time, I didn’t have the knowledge, time or desire to learn.
2. Believe it or not, I needed to know, that 2 games in particular were included in the unit. Aaron
HAD to have game X and Y or the whole thing would of been considered a failure. Other cabinet builders hinted about games, or said how I could load them. At
www.dreamhomearcade.com he had a list on his web page, the 2 games I needed were on that list. He said they were tested and worked perfectly. Something so simple was really the difference between sale or no sale.
Aaron already had a full size Wrestlefest cabinet in his room, so its only after I figured I could convert that into a mame cabinet that I even thought about mame, ROMs, fronted or this forum. And I am glad I did. While I have seen a bunch of beautiful stuff on this forum , 2 cabinets really rocked my world ... Knievel's Neon cabinet and Knievel's Flyercade. Combine both cabinets with Aarons other passion The Detriot Pistons, this was my theme. The neon and portholes of the Neon Cabinet, with the team colors theme and feel of the Flyercade.
www.dreamhomearcades.com will make you any cabinet you want ... Sence my brother and I are pretty big guys we went with the "Stealth" cabinet. The extra leg room was too hard to pass up.
Here is there basic "Stealth" cabinet.
We decided to add the oversize 48" control panel. Like this.
Wheres the candy you ask ?While we did away with the neon we did add lighting effects..
We made the side art light up like the marquee. We added 'spot' lights to kickplate and center court logo, kinda like this ...
We added a VGA video out ... like this ...
We added a light gun and removable driving wheel.
We added leaf switches to the buttons.
We added 3 buttons to the trackball.
We requested a rectangular cut, ‘basketball court’ style to the control panel.
We requested a relaxed fit to the 2 player CP. ( plently of room between player 1 and 2 )
And he use offical Detroit Pistons team color paint for the cabinet.
I am very excited and we should recieve this cabinet early Aug. I will be back with pics ...