MAME slot machine emulator is 25 years old

Video game emulators don’t always look their best, but they actually play an important role when it comes to keeping video games alive and resurrecting classics on modern hardware.

With that in mind, MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has just turned 25 years old since its debut on February 5, 1997. different platforms.

Here is a summary from MAME official website:

“MAME is a multipurpose emulation environment. MAME’s goal is to preserve decades of software history. As electronic technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, MAME prevents this important “vintage” software from being lost and forgotten. This is achieved by documenting the hardware and how it works. The MAME source code serves as this documentation. The fact that the software is usable serves primarily to verify the accuracy of the documentation (how else can you prove that you’ve accurately recreated the hardware?). Over time, MAME (originally standing for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) absorbed sister project MESS (Multi Emulator Super System), so MAME now documents a wide range of (mostly vintage) computers, game consoles, and calculators, in addition to the arcade video games that were its initial focus.

It goes far beyond that – and has been legitimized. For example, in more recent times it was discovered that Capcom was using code from MAME v Capcom Arcade Stadium. MAME’s influence extended to other emulators that followed.

It’s not the only emulator – the Nintendo 64 Project 64 emulator turns 20 in 2021.