Coin-operated arcade machines led the industry from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. Each cabinet ran custom hardware built for a single game, so arcades could push graphics and sound well past the home machines of the day.
The format produced landmarks in every genre: Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Street Fighter II, Out Run and hundreds more that later shaped home ports.
MAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, now reproduces thousands of these boards, keeping games playable that would otherwise vanish with their ageing hardware.
