Software Overview
Software used as a foundation on a home arcade machine will generally consists of an emulator(s) to run software on a computer and a frontend to provide a menu system to allow players to select from a list of games.
Recently, the desire for multiple uses of an arcade cabinet and/or enhancing the game-playing experience have brought about the use of additional software, perhaps to play a PC game, allow use of the cabinet as a jukebox, or for lighting and configuration enhancements.
Software has gone through great leaps and bounds since the inception of this hobby. As an example, in the late 90's, a common route many people were choosing was PC2Jamma. Typically, MAME was used as a game emulator, ArcadeOS as the front-end, and DOS as the operating system, since this allowed the use of real arcade monitors. Since then, hardware has been developed to make using an arcade monitor from other operating systems simple, and more complex front-ends and emulators have been developed to utilize PC hardware better.
More in-depth information can be found on these pages:
