Additionally, through the International Arcade Museum and KLOV e-mail services offerings, you can have our web sites automatically forward any article or other International Arcade Museum and KLOV content directly to a friend.

Our History

In the 1980s, Before the KLOV was the KLOV we know and love today, arcade enthusiasts gathered on modem-based dial-up bulletin board systems and CompuServe forums. This involved into the KLOV and the KLOV's list of videogames and list of videogame cheats at the start of the 1990s.

In March 1993, the list finally passed the 1,000 entry point. At this time, the largest entry had 4 lines of text with a maximum of 75 characters per line, and it was distributed via BBS systems, and Usenet on the Internet. In late 1999, the KLOV finally reached 2000 entries. Under Brian Johnson's leadership, KLOV entries became encyclopedia pages with extensive text and graphics. Greg McLemore and WebMagic took over the KLOV at the start of 2000 and by February 2000, the KLOV's online presence was moved to KLOV.COM. By the end of 2000, the KLOV had 3000 entries.

In December 2002, the International Arcade Museum was created to expand on work done by the KLOV over the previous decade. The KLOV became part of The International Arcade Museum and 6000 entries covering early coin-operated machines was added. The KLOV passed 4000 video-game entries in September 2003, and there were now also 8000 non-videogame entries. At the start of 2005, there were nearly 13000 total entries in our encyclopedia.

Thank you

We would like to thank everyone that has helped to make The International Arcade Museum and the KLOV everything it is today. In particular:

• Our Visitors - We would like to thank our countless web site visitors who have provided us with a reason to be here, as well as endless contributions of content that we have used in the development of our web sites.
  
• Image Contributors and Editors - Our encyclopedia editors help our web site to improve daily. In 2004, we launched an automated Scoreboard of our Top Image Editors and Top Image Contributors (from 2004 forward)
  
• Our Forum Community - Our active members of our message boards help maintain our community and help out the IAM and KLOV in a variety of ways.
  
• Greg McLemore -- Greg is the founder and chairman of WebMagic, which provides the financial support to keep everything running here. Upon adopting the KLOV, he expanded it greatly, oversaw a move to a SQL/PHP based data management system, and led a establishing guidelines aimed at allowing the KLOV to continue to grow.
  
• David Leimbach -- David handles most of the updates to the web site on a day-to-day basis.
  
• Brian Johnson -- Brian was instrumental in developing the KLOV's web site from a simple text list to a full web-based encyclopedia. Brian ran the KLOV for several years (1994/1995 to 2000) and then passed the baton to Greg McLemore and WebMagic. Even then, he still contributed countless hours to the site while his time permitted.
  
• The Early KLOV Keepers - Mike Hughey (an early contributor, circa 1992-1993?), Jeremy Radlow (1992), Jonathan Deitch (December 1992 through 1993), and then of course Brian Johnson (mentioned above)
  
• Roger Hilden -- Roger of Crow River Trading (www.crowriver.com) contributed his "Foto-Finder" creation to the International Arcade Museum. This census of coin-operated machines covered by dozens of reference books formed the basis of our database expansion. This expansion added 6,000 older coin-operated machines (machine name, manufacturer, and date) to our existing collection of 4,000 video-game entries. We are now busy adding photos, descriptions, and other information to these additions.
  
• Kenny Rubin -- Kenny allowed us to use his descriptions from his book Drop Coin Here for over 300 early machines soon after we expanded our encyclopedia with the early entries.
  
• Everyone else I may have neglected to list here...

Press Coverage

Museum Acquisition Guidelines (draft)

We have already started to gather specimens of important and fun machines. Additionally, an extensive library collection has already been established.

With coin-operated amusement machines the International Arcade Museum's primary collecting focus, we have developed guidelines that assist us in determining what treasures to add to the collection. In addition to those items that fall into one of the categories listed below, we give priority to machines that represent an uncommon or pioneering approach to design, engineering, marketing or manufacturing; have a noteworthy competitive history; have been highly respected by collectors; or are associated with an important figure in amusement history, entertainment, politics or business. Original machines are preferred over those that have been restored.

Please contact us if you have any contributions that you would like to make, including machines, parts, and especially old catalogs and related literature. Thank you in advance for your continued support.