MAME's purpose is to preserve decades of software history. As electronic technology continues to rush forward, MAME prevents this important "vintage" software from being lost and forgotten. This is achieved by documenting the hardware and how it functions. The source code to MAME serves as this documentation. The fact that the software is usable serves primarily to validate the accuracy of the documentation (how else can you prove that you have recreated the hardware faithfully?). Over time, MAME (originally stood for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) absorbed the sister-project MESS (Multi Emulator Super System), so MAME now documents a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers, video game consoles and calculators, in addition to the arcade video games that were its initial focus.

Snes9x is a portable, freeware Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) emulator. It basically allows you to play most games designed for the SNES and Super Famicom Nintendo game systems on your PC or Workstation; which includes some real gems that were only ever released in Japan. TestBuild versions are draft versions - allow you to evaluate the progress of the code between the next official editions of this great Super Nintendo emulator (of course, those who appreciate the super accuracy should reach Higan and other projects based on the Bsnes code by Byu).

HBMAME (HomeBrew MAME) is a derivative of MAME, and contains various hacks and homebrews. It is based on the latest MAME source at the time of release.

Supermodel emulates Sega's Model 3 arcade platform, allowing you to play a number of ground-breaking arcade classics on your PC. The aim of the Supermodel project is to develop an emulator that is both accurate and playable. As with virtually all arcade hardware, no public documentation for the Model 3 platform exists. What is known so far has been painstakingly reverse engineered from scratch. There is still plenty left to figure out and the emphasis at this early phase of development is toward accuracy rather than speed and usability.