Got a Dragon's Lair cabinet for $25. What should I do with it??

[pgifford]

Hi,

  I've posted this on a couple of other venues (newsgroup, mame) and someone suggested I post here.  After looking through the board I see this should have been my first stop.

  I picked up a Buster Bros. cabinet (gutted) that I plan to convert to a MAME box.  The next day a friend points me to an auto parts store that has an arcade game for sale sitting out front.  It's not in great shape and has some water in it, but for $25 I couldn't resist (obviously my wife wasn't with me).

  The guy tells me it worked until a kid reached in (from where I don't know) and pulled 4 wires out.  Fine.  I get it home and it looks like the wires go to the coin mech so that shouldn't affect the game starting.  The game doesn't work (I tried) but haven't had a chance to troubleshoot it.  It's a Gladiator conversion so I don't care too much about the game anyway.

  Finally, the question: what would you do with the cabinet?  I have pictures here:

http://www.digitalironworks.com/game/

The first few pictures are for a guy interested in buying some parts off it for a Thayer's Quest he is building...he wanted to see a few things close up.  

I could gut it and make it a Daphne box (after a while...don't have that many computers laying around) or my MAME box (and use Buster Bros. for something else).  I could turn it back into Dragon's Lair.  I could put some other machine in it.  Or as one person suggested, I could toss it in a dumpster.

What would you do with it?  I'm new to this so I don't feel I have a grasp of all the things I could do.

Thanks!

Paul

[krick]

Welcome to BYOAC, Paul.  I was the guy in the MAME forum who sent you here.

As for what to do with your cabinet....  I'm sure one of the helpful people in this forum will set you on the right path.  My guess is that they'll probably tell you to restore it.  Or at least, clean it up and put it on eBay for someone else to restore.  It's a unique cabinet shape from a classic game so I doubt they'll tell you to MAME it.

I looked at your pictures.  All I have to say is, "Man, look at the set of speakers on that cab!"  They're HUGE!

Just a tip, you should probably edit your original post and change the title to something like "Got a Dragon's Lair cabinet for $25. What should I do with it?" to get more attention.

...
Krick

[pgifford]

Thanks Krick...I made the change...let's see what happens!

[Daniel270]

One suggestion (and mind I said "suggestion")...

Sell off whatever you can for the Thayer's Quest inquiry, then make it into a working DL machine..  If you look on Ebay, you can find several copies of the  DL game on CD by Readysoft (if you want a cheaper version of the game, that is).  Then install a PC into the cab and you'd also be able to play quite a few other games on MAME as well.

Just my $.02

Daniel

[JoeB]

It all depends on how good you are with woodworking and electronics.

If you're so so and can't spare the time (and money) then just sell it off to someone else who will want to restore it.  

The cab is old (circa 1983) and working with it requires a lot of time and effort.  What ever you do, do NOT run a CD version of daphne on it.. it'll look cheap and crappy.  At the least run the DVD version!!!!

As far as what's inside of it.. is that a laser disc player on the bottom of the cab?  You also never showed how the side art looks like (if it's there).. maybe there's an amazing dragon's lair sideart under the black paint!

MAMEing a mid-90's generic arcade machine is much better than touching a classic.

[SaiNRuB]

Look how much this Dragon's Lair cabinet fetched on EBAY.
LINK

Id sell it in a heartbeat if I could get that kinda bank for it.

[Xiaou2]

 If you do a little research,  then grab the needed parts off ebay... eventually you can rebuild the cab to Dragons Lair.
(use laser disc components... not pc or dvd stuff)

 The reason why the cab 'only'  gets like 400$+  is because if they are fixed and sold - they go for well over 1500$   I think more like 2000$  but im sure that also depends on condition.

 

[dag2000]

I'm a little confused.  Is it a Drongons Lair converted to Gladiator or Vice-versa?  Can you locate the loose wires and post pics?  Maybe someone here could guide you to reconnecting them.  When you say it doesn't work could you be more specific?  When you plug it it nothing happens or what?

[krick]

Looking at the cabinet shape, I'd say that it was a Dragon's Lair converted to Gladiator.

[pgifford]

I'm a little confused.  Is it a Drongons Lair converted to Gladiator or Vice-versa?  Can you locate the loose wires and post pics?  Maybe someone here could guide you to reconnecting them.  When you say it doesn't work could you be more specific?  When you plug it it nothing happens or what?

It's actually a Dragon's Lair converted to a Thayer's Quest converted to Gladiator.  The marquee still has some TQ overlay on it and inside the cab, above the coin door, is a fluorescent light fixture that was used (I assume) to illuminate the TQ keyboard.

I plugged the cabinet in.  Nothing.  So far so good...I didn't want it to do anything at that point.  The only switch I saw was a white rod (a couple of inches long, sort of tapered at the end) that is on a spring and moves in and out.  If I push it in it pops right out.   If you go to this page:

http://www.digitalironworks.com/game/

you can see it from a distance in picture 8.  I'm on AF Reserve duty right now so I'm not home to take more pictures, sorry.

When I held in the switch the monitor came to life a little.  Ok, I don't know the right words for what I'm trying to describe so bear with me  At the end of the monitor inside the cabinet, i.e. not the part you view but the other end, there was a buzzing and inside the glass I could see blue light.  Sort of like the lights you find at Spencer's - the ones where you can see the electricity moving around inside (ok, not electricity but ionized air? ).   After a few seconds it stopped.

I know that's a terrible job of describing things but I hope it gives you more information.

Thanks,

Paul

[Generic Eric]

If you want to part it out, I am interested.  Let me know, here or pm.

[MameMaster!]

Restore!....Restore!...Restore!......visit the dragonslairproject.com for details (or do you already know about that?).

You could run the DVD 25th anniversary set off of a relatively old PC and get this sucker up and running.

....good luck!

MameMaster!  

[independentthread]

I think it comes down to what someone else already mentioned, time and money.
If you have the money to buy all the parts, and have the knowledge to use those parts, great.  Will you have the time???  The pictures show water damage on the front panel, and that coin door is.....I won't go there.
Anything can be fixed, it just matters whether or not you have the time and money.  If you don't one or the other, or either one, then I would definately sell off what you can and then sell the cab.  Because SOMEONE can return that to the thing of beauty that it once was.

My vote, if you are going to fix it that is, since that thing is on the virge of being considered an antique  ( which means I am too!!!) restoration would mean bringing it to it's original state. Laserdisk.  Enough said.

[Inaba]

He pgifford,

Couple things about your Dragons Lair...  First, if you're seeing that light on the LD player, that's BAD.  It means the cover to your LD has been lost, which means dust is going to be getting in there, and causing all sorts of havok.

If you're talking about something else, then ignore the above.  Your pictures link isn't working, so I can't see any of the pics.

I'd like to know what kinda LD player you have in there, and if it still works, though.  I'd be interested in it if it does... I've been looking for a replacement for my DL for a long time now.

They are a major pain to restore, you'll probably have to get new EPROMs and have them programmed, typically, they will have been erased slowly over time; Given the age of the machine and condition of the cab, there's bound to be UV seepage which will eventually erase the EPROMs.

The LD players are persnickety as well, and you have to fuss with them on occasion.  They are hard to find... BUT, you can buy a LaserAce conversion card that will allow you to use some newer-ish LD players that don't suffer a lot of the problems the 8xxx series and LD-V1000's suffer.  It costs about $250 though, and there's a huge lead time on ordering them.  THen you have to track down a compatible player.  If you've got a Rev.C or older board, you'll have to make some modifications to the PCB if you want to use an LD-V1000 without the LaserAce, but it can be done as well to save on cost.  This is a dangerous way to go.

Anyway, I'd definitely like to see pics of what you got...

[RayB]

PGifford:
That white switch which you can push in momentarily for power, can also be PULLED OUT and it will remain in that position, with power on until you push it back to the "middle" position.

It's meant to be that when the back door is closed, it pushes the button IN, and enables power. Take the door off, and power goes off (safety precaution), then if you're a technician or whatever, you can re-enable power with the door still off by pulling the switch out.

~RB

[pgifford]

I think it comes down to what someone else already mentioned, time and money.
If you have the money to buy all the parts, and have the knowledge to use those parts, great.  Will you have the time???  The pictures show water damage on the front panel, and that coin door is.....I won't go there.
Anything can be fixed, it just matters whether or not you have the time and money.  If you don't one or the other, or either one, then I would definately sell off what you can and then sell the cab.  Because SOMEONE can return that to the thing of beauty that it once was.

My vote, if you are going to fix it that is, since that thing is on the virge of being considered an antique  ( which means I am too!!!) restoration would mean bringing it to it's original state. Laserdisk.  Enough said.

While a number of people have expressed an interest in buying parts I'm leaning towards selling the whole thing, for the reasons you mentioned.  If someone can bring it back to life that's great and selling off the parts will make it much harder to do.  It's easier to sell the parts than the whole, however.  If the cab won't go then I'll part it out and do something with the remaining cab (firewood anyone? )

Thanks for the advice (everyone!)

Paul

[Generic Eric]

where is the cab?  

[pgifford]

where is the cab?  

I'm just outside of Baltimore.

Paul