Arcadecontrols.com OLDWiki:About

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What's the BYOAC Wiki all about?

The BYOAC Wiki is the third main section of Build Your Own Arcade Controls website.

Sometime back in early 1998, the Build Your Own Arcade Controls FAQ web site was born (About this site). It existed as a set of mostly static web pages that grew rapidly from a few small pages to dozens and dozens of pages. You can read the "About this site" link to learn more, but in a nutshell this site is about building (or buying) authentic arcade controls and connecting them to your computer so that you can play arcade style games with real arcade controls instead of a keyboard or mouse. It has also diverged into similar topics, such as using game console controllers on your computer, and using arcade controls on game consoles themselves such as the Playstation or X-Box.


Next, sometime in early 1999, a message forum was added that rapidly exploded! BYOAC changed from a simple web site to a web community. The message forums became so popular that some users did not even realize the main web site existed at all!


Finally in early 2006, the Wiki section was added. Unlike a static web site where a few people create the content, and unlike a message forum where users can create content but have little control over navigation and layout design, a Wiki is a (mostly) user-created piece of the web. Any registered user of the message forums can log into the BYOAC Wiki, click any of the Wiki links, and if they are so inclined can edit/update/correct at will. A truely web-community designed site! In fact, registered forum users can even create new pages and sections of the Wiki at will! The page can be elaborate (fora great example, see the Pushbuttons page), or just a simple paragraph or two. The really nice thing is that multiple people can collaborate on a page at will, hopefully making the information relevant, informative, and well presented.


The Wiki is a bit of an experiment for us still. The look, shape, feel, and even allowed editors may change as needs dictate. For now however, it is as you see before you. It came about as a result of two forces:


1. The overwhelming growth and complexity of this hobby has led to many of the static pages getting somewhat stale. One day (soon!) they'll get fixed, but there are hundreds of pages on the site, so something's going to be out of date just about all the time!

2. BYOAC forum members suggested it, and BYOAC forum members are some of the smartest folks around! OK, that was a bit cheesy, but most of the best of BYOAC came from forum members, so . . . our resident guru SirWoogie waved his magic wand and the Wiki was born!


So -- take a look around, and if you think you've got something to add, jump on in!