For those who remember my old site, this is quite a change! For the better though. This site is now built from a Database. Everything, except the layout that is, but even thats controled by a Database! I spent several months (a hour here, an hour there) designing the new look for this site. In the process however, I have caused a few problems with other browsers.

For best results you should be using:

I have taken some heat over the fact that this site looks like crap in NetScape, however, I have not had the time to fix that. Until the time comes when I can fix it, Netscape and other Non-IE browsers will have to suffer. Sorry, but there are just not enough hours in the day.

The site is broken down in to 9 areas, which will be described in further detail.

Section 1

This is the my new Title graphic! Pretty cool huh? Thats about the most artistically you'll get out of me. Ok, actually, the arrow should be pointing to the Blue bar. This bar tells you where you are at, at all times. It tells you what category you are in, and what selection under that category was made. For example, since you are looking at this page, you selected the "Help!" category, and then you chose the "Help!" option (or to be more specific the system chose it for you since its the first item in the "Help!" category).

Section 2

There's No Place like home! Ok, this will always take you to the opening page of the site. Currently the opening page is the current news. Pretty easy so far eh?

Section 3

This is the current date and time that this page was generated in Arizona Time. All pages are generated in Real-Time. Always fresh!

Section 4

Now we get to the exciting stuff! Section 4 is the most powerful part of the entire site. This allows you to search for keywords on the entire site. This button is ALWAYS available from any page.

When you search you can use specific keywords or general keywords. I wrote an application that cross references every word on this site and builds a lookup table for those words. Any word that is used more than 100 times on the site is rejected since those words are too common and you would never find what you were looking for. However, if you feel that a word is being discarded when it shouldn't then drop me an @EMAIL@ and I'll make sure its included in the next build.

By building the cross-reference, the searches are lightning fast.

Currently there are over 4,900 keywords that you can search on. As of 5/23/2000, the site has over 40,000 words on it. Words such as "THE" and "I" will are discarded becuase they are too common and won't help you find what you are looking for.

Examples of good keywords:

Examples of bad keywords:

The search engine works by looking for all the words you type in. Any item that that it finds with more matches than the other moves closer to the top. A future version will add points for context, thus moving it closer to the top. When that is done, I will add a description of what that really means to you here. All you need to know right now is that it will help you find what you want quicker, but its a lot of work for me :-)

Section 5
Section 5 contains all the categories that have live data in them.

You'll notice that some of the categories will have a Yellow star next to them. This is an indication that there is new information in that category within the last three days.

Eventually I would like to use Cookies to allow it to show new information since the last time you visited. However, I haven't gotten around to that yet.

By clicking on a link under the categories, Section 6 and Section 7 will change based on the category and the information in that category.

If you have IE4 or higher (not sure about IE3) you can hold your mouse over the link and it will show you a short description of whats in category.

Section 6
Got Data? Well, this is the main section. All the text goes in here from the category that you selected.

Clicking on most images will bring up a larger version in its own window. This was done so you could do side by side comparisions of pictures. It also allows you to keep reading while looking at a full sized picture.

Section 7
Section 7 is the second most powerful part of the site. This area contains all the context senstive information based on the category you have chosen. If you pick news, it will display a list of months in the current year so you can go back and read older news.

If there are other related items on the site that are related to what you are currently viewing in section 6, those items will be listed here. This allows me to direct your attention to other areas of the site, or other sites that might be of interest to you since they are related to what you are currently reading.

At a minimum, you should see four headings always listed (for now). Since its context senstive though, you could see a lot more!
The first heading will usually be the description of the category or a list of links in that category depending what is appropriate at the time.

The second heading you should see is for Adding a link to my site. If you have a site and would like to have it linked from mine, please feel free to add it. Choose the category that you feel best suits your site. If I think otherwise, I will change it before the link goes live.

Note: Someone has already tried to Add a link to one of those "referal" sites. These types of links will not be tollerated and are deleted immediatly. So don't even think about it. ALL HTML is stripped from the Title, Description, etc.. so Don't spend a lot of time on formating.

The description that you enter will also be cross-referenced along with the rest of the site, so please be specific if you want to be found via the search engine.

If you would like a logo with your Link or you would like to use some HTML in your description, please email me the logo and the description. Your logo should 403x100. If it is not, then the picture will be scaled to that size automaticlly by the site. So if you want it to look good, scale it and touch it up.

If you just want me to use a picture from you site, I can do that too by using a URL to reference the picture. Just send me the URL.

The last two sections are the statistics of the page you are viewing and the site in general. They are more for my entertainment than anything else. Eventually I will be including a Top 10 to allow people to see the most popular parts of the site.

Section 8
Section 8 is whats called a Web Ring. The web ring is a community of sites of a similar interest. In this case, the interest is Arcade Collecting. These links will take you to other sites in the Web Ring.

Section 9
Section 9 is simply the Copyright information and the Reproduction License. If you have any questions on the validitity of a copyright, or if I am using something that is copyrighted and am not giving the proper credit. Please feel free to @EMAIL@ and I will either fix the issue or remove the content in question.

As always, I am very open to ideas and comments concerning the site, the way it looks, and the way it operates. @EMAIL@ me if you would like to share your thoughts with me.

Contributions of Content are always welcome! As you move around the site, you will notice that several people have contributed to this site. I really appreciate the time and effort that they have put into contributing!