somepunk wrote:well, that will get me started at least, I hardly knew where to begin, before now, these sort of things would be impossible to track down, the forums all weren't exactly active...but thanks!
Yeah I had trouble getting it all figured out. I actually bought the ROMs shortly after VO Force was released, so around late 2001 (I think I got mostly everything, VER.5.66 control panels, ROMs, and marquees, in December 2001). The original photo I took is actually
here... no exif data, though, so I don't know when I took it. Regarding the filename, yes, I was excited.
Due to funds availability concerns at the time, I eventually sold off two of the three control panels I bought (I kept the one in the best condition). Sadly I also had to pass on
tons of ROMs that sold on Yahoo! JP Auctions for cheap (usually about 7000-8000 yen!!!). I also didn't buy any of the VER.5.66 seat backs that were available. Yup, a
whole lot of barely year old VER.5.66 cabinets (recall that VER.5.66 was "2000 EDITION") were cannibalized for use with VO Force.
Back then I couldn't find any information on how to set this up, and couldn't really afford it anyway, so I put it on hold for a couple years until I found
sega-naomi.com. Unsurprisingly, they have info about the Sega NAOMI system, so I was able to finally figure it all out and piece together this setup. Since it's single player only, and VOOT was basically dead anyway and thus there was no point to build a complete versus setup anyway, I barely played it. Someday I may finish building a complete versus setup, though, especially if VOOT for Xbox 360 takes off and I can meet with local players again.
I guess the availability of information has it's downside. Since NAOMI gear is cheap, widely available, has many games, and setting it up is actually pretty simple, there is little barrier to entry to setup VER.5.66 as I have done. Thus, VER.5.66 ROM prices skyrocketed. However maybe other factors played a role. The PS2 Sega Ages OMG release may have renewed interest in Virtual-On, because right around that time VER.5.66 ROM prices doubled (as recent as 2006, you could find VER.5.66 ROMs for about $200, but from 2008 on they have been at $400). Yeah, it would have been nice if I had picked up all those ROMs for $70 each.
