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Habbo Origins wouldn't be around if it wasn't for tinkerers who figured out how to make an already compiled Habbo DCR run as a stand-alone desktop app, over a decade later. Which prompted a Sulake Employee to try it out. Said employee was originally part of the Habbo Retro / Emulator scene. ;)

The Reverse Engineering scene is quite a scene.

Gotta catch ‘em all

There's a fair number of low game count systems where people are really enamored with one game. For example, I'm a big fan of T-Mek (I've got a machine with issues in my barn), but that system only has two games, so it waits for someone who is interested, determined, equipped, and skilled to figure out the protection to enable it to run properly in MAME.

Some arcade hardware is totally custom and only runs one game. Some chips are unique and only appear on one board. MAME's mission is clear, however SNK is a big enough name, along with Samurai Shodown and Fatal Fury, that the HNG64 was always going to get attention.

There are actually a good numer of forks, but not sure if they qualify for your criteria of "serious" or not.

I also won't be naming any of them because those "committed" mame devs are very quick to inject themselves into any story about them, and harshly judge everything else that touches their code that didn't come from them.

A C++ codebase with bonus non-C++ code that generates C++ code plus a build-process-that-generates-build processes all with maniacal inter-dependencies and a guy who insists on renaming everything and moving all the files around in git-destroying ways twice a year does indeed create a bit of a monks-in-the-caves vibe.

Not exactly a fork but there was a separate MESS, for a time, expanding the scope to non-arcade systems, until it was reenfolded.

I don't see how it is, but maybe you're referring to something else. I think you're talking about the CPS, or more famously the CPS2, which had a battery power its anti-piracy measures. You only had to send it in if the battery dipped below a certain voltage, after which it would destroy the security key (in memory), so the ROMs would remain encrypted. You could turn off the machine just fine. Arcade machines were regularly powered off. This coupled with the fact that the CPS2 batteries especially are prone to leak over critical components dubbed them the suicide batteries. These security measures have since been defeated in a few ways, all while removing the troublesome battery. You can replaced the encrypted ROMs on your board with Phoenix ROMs, which are decypted. You can solder on a PCB called the Infinikey, which loads the decryption key with power from the board and not the battery. Maybe there are others, too.

I think the HNG64 just had obscure/undumped/not understood hardware.

That shit is something you still find in the gambling world. Many of the modern one-armed bandits have HSMs with a loooot of protections, including batteries with drill through protections and god knows what else, although it's less used for anti-piracy but more to prevent tax fraud.

Not many knew they existed! They are sought after by collectors, and fetch a pretty penny. At least they were when I was getting into PC Engine/TurboGrafx gear ~15 years ago. I'm sure it's even more now.