Comment by wg0

Software is code and code is documentation. Do you know MAME that is documenting the arcade consoles as code? And that they work is just a side effect and is not an intended goal?

That doesn't mean that MAME is a trivial project. Far from it. It'll take you several years to get proficient with the whole codebase.

Just that unlike manufacturing, the software is much more self contained and everything is in those files including how to build them.