Vega Jr - the Jpn Supergun

Hello,

I just wanted let everyone know about Vega Jr. Many people really don't know about this gem in the US, but it is a professionally built Supergun sold in Japan. You can often see it advertised in Gamest Magazine(Jpn).

I had the Super Nova a few years ago and while I thought it was cool, I ended having many problems with it later on until I eventually threw it away.

I went to Osaka, Jpn last year and I saw the Vega Jr in a arcade shop, bought it for about $200. It was the best money I have ever spent. The Vega Jr. is built exactly like a Jpn arcade control panel, it is lite, and very well built. It isn't built from wood like the SuperNova, but aluminum casing and is one unit supporting 2 players with 8 buttons, 4 on top and 4 on the bottom. It supports, composite, S-Video, and RGB and has stereo headphone output as well. It is easy to store away, which makes sense since Japanese rooms and apt tend to be small.

The Vega Jr is made from the exact same parts as the new arcade machines in Japan.
It was a little getting used to at first, because Jpn joysticks tend to be more responsive, but that actually turned out to be a good thing. It is so easy to pull off moves now, one move I could never really pull off in the US arcades was Geese's Rising Storm, but I can pull if off about 80% of the time and Zangief's 360x2 super was nearly impossible for me to pull off, but I can get it about 50% of the times with the Vega Jr. I am convinced that the Jpn gamers have the better control end of the deal.

I don't know were anyone can buy it online or in the US, I've actually looked, but if you see one for sale, grab it, it is so much better than the SuperNova and it is really worth it.

I'll have pic of it available soon, so you guys can see what it looks like.

Regards,

Yes, I wanna see a photo!

That would be nice to see pics of it, you never find many sites with pics and things like that.

What problems did you have with your SuperNOVA btw?

I love my Super Nova, but if the Vega can save me a lot more space and the controls are as good as you say then I'm interested.

I had problem with the controller and video. I tried fixing the video problem, but A friend of my looked it over and said that a chip or wire had burned out or something like that. The controller had poor I/O responses, I did fix that problem myself, but the fix was only temporary, as I kept fixing the problem until my fixes just didn't stick. I know enough about the inner workings to make minor fixes, but I don't think the SuperNova I had was built very well, some of the solding job wasn't done all that well. I had it for about 16 months until it was just unless to me.

I have opened up my Vega Jr. and it is very well put together.

Trunks, is there anywhere online to buy it? I have about eight hundred dollars to work with so I am considering all options. The only problem is I don't have room for an arcade so I am going to go with a Super Gun or wait to see what iArcade's announcment is in Gaming Go magazine (I wish they would just give us some info!) I just want to play some Metal Slug 3 without paying 600 bucks for the Neo cart.

I don't know where exactly to buy it, but you can try MAK, which is a Japanese arcade retail site. Problem is, it is in Japanese, but I have heard that they do export. If you look at their shop section in the middle image of the page, you can see a couple of other Vega models on display. I don't see the one I have, but it is similiar to ones in the picture. I see one that has turbo -fire and other things like that. There is also one that you can connect a Gun controller and driving controller to, so you can play Shooting games like Virtua Cop and driving games like Sega GT, but the shop that I was at didn't have those in stock. The next time I go back to Japan, I am going to buy a kit that will allow my Vega to hook up a gun and driving controller.
http://www.mak-jp.com


Regards,

Hey Sin Guile,

If you've got 800 dollars to spare, then you should at least first try building your own jamma harness rather than wasting 300 dollars on what is essentially a bunch of wires.

Go out and buy half a foot of 8 different coloured wires (power wires), then same again for signals. Buy 2 inline fuse holders, 1 10a fuse, 1 2a fuse, 1 scart plug and 1 100ohm resistor. Now you have a suprgun.

Buy some dc arcade sticks for 16 quid each.

Grand total::: about 50 uk pounds.

Sod all that mas, hga stuff.

Thanks for the advice Doughboy. I am not sure I could build my own though. Are there instructions on how to do it?

Shin Guile,

Here is a link to Gamesx a great resource.
http://www.gamesx.com/arcade/cheapjamma.htm

it explains in brief a cheap Home JAMMA solution. Cost is low and it shouldn't take you that long to put together. Soldering skill is a must. You could wire any controller you want to use with it. One problem with this though is that you will have to figure out your display issue. I recommend getting a 25" Hitachi switchable monitor(true arcade expression), so you can play std res games like those of SNK and Capcom and mid res games like from Sega. I think there is one on auction on ebay.


Good luck,

Here is the pic of the Vega Jr. It isn't my picture, but I found this on the Internet.

That looks pretty cool, where do you hook up the MVS slot(s) at though? Also I read your first post more carefully and noticed that you said you had a Nova, what kind of problems did you have with it? I keep looking at those instructions on how to built your own super gun but maybe it is because I don't have the parts to look at but it looks kind of intimadating. I also am looking at this, http://freespace.virgin.net/chad.gray/Supergun/supergunIndex.htm

Building your own JAMMA device is a bit intimidating if you don't know which way is up. I wouldn't recommend it unless you have time to burn, but it isn't that hard to build a cheap simple one like the one mentioned before. It is a good idea to know some technical issues regarding how arcade machines works though and learning to solder is easy.

The Vega is JAMMA compatible, so a JAMMA harness is attached to the back of it and any JAMMA compatible board like, the MVS boards is attached to the other end of it. You might be able to find a fully linked JAMMA Harness that has the extra kick harness for CAPCOM games on ebay or the internet. But if you know how to solder it is really easy to put a harness together, almost like connecting the dots.

You know the 3rd option might be to wait for !arcade! secret machine. I have no idea what it is suppose to be, but it might be what you are looking for.

Regards,

Anyone find any pics of it, where did u get that one pic?

That thing is pretty cool. I perfer the Sigma. It has everything as well. I was unaware of the S-Video cord that is available for it. This thing ROCKS!

See it here: www.homestead.com/gigapower/neogeo.html

or on the collections page! <IMG SRC="smilies/tickled.gif" border="0">



[ May 14, 2001: Message edited by: TonK ]

They have them at www.mak-jp.com aswell, they look sweet <IMG SRC="smilies/drool2.gif" border="0">

Funny thing about the poster of this topic, Gamest magazine was canceled many years ago I believe

Gamest was still around as of January 2000. I don't know if is was cancelled or not. You might be think of the Neo Geo Freak magazine, which was cancelled a while back. Here is a Gamest cover with K' on it. It can't be older than August 1999, because KOF 99 came out in Sept of 99.