I think emulation is the sincerest form of preservation for these old systems. The Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) project would often say that preservation of the old hardware was their goal, the fact that you could use the code to play old roms was really more of a side affect. I used to think that was just a pretext for piracy, and I still think there's something to that, but more and more I appreciate what they did to document that old gear.