For the longest time, I’ve always been intrigued by the arcade version of Tatsunoko Vs Capcom (TvC). The western world received a Wii release of TvC in the form of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars which brought an updated, rebalance of the arcade version.
The Wii however, does not have native VGA and JVS support, so the arcade version would be nice to have. Unfortunately, the price of the original TvC arcade board has always been well and truly beyond I’m willing to spend so it has always been put aside…… Until recently 😀
I got wind of a cheap Capcom RVA-001 unit from Yahoo Auctions Japan and I heard some people were converting them from the unusable Mario Party to a very usable TvC unit.
Me being a sucker for “projects”, I thought, why the hell not? Let’s order a cheap unit and worst case scenario, I lose out some cash. Best case scenario, I get a TvC unit 🙂
I eventually won a unit and when it arrived, I did the normal things, check it out and start it up to see if it worked.
The unit definitely worked, but gave me an error that translated to “Serial I/O port timeout error, please call the staff” according to google translate.
The next challenge I had was powering the unit as it’s expecting 100V AC. I knew the cab had 100V AC, but I needed to create a way for main PSU to feed off the cab.
First step was to identify where the 100V AC line was which the trusty multimeter is perfect for.
Fortunately for me, I have a whole heap of spare wiring from junk cabs and the TE Amp Up connectors that Sega loved to use. It was easy enough for me to make a Y cable using the Sega colour coding for AC 100V
A quick test to confirm I could use the cab to power the unit
Once testing was confirmed, I rigged up the proper connector I needed for the JPN PSU
Following some processes I found online, I manage to convert the unit into TvC!
There it is! TvC on original hardware!
What a game!
