The introduction of optical media in the form of CDs meant a revolution in the world of gaming consoles, escaping the restrictions of a few dozen MB of storage and instead offering a theoretically infinite amount of storage through the miracle and tedium of swapping discs. After the SNES narrowly escaped getting a CD add-on and the N64 doubled down on cartridges, we can now at least get an impression of what it’d be like if the Nintendo Entertainment System had been gifted a CD add-on back in the 1980s, courtesy of a project by [Throaty Mumbo].
There’s also an accompanying video containing typical hijinks and a demonstration of this system. Initially [Throaty Mumbo] was going to make a SNES CD add-on to match that console’s initial prototype, but doing it for the NES seemed more fun. Obviously, since the NES is quite limited hardware-wise it was always going to be a struggle, even if the original front-loading NES conveniently has a mostly unused expansion slot.
On the custom PCB there is an RP2350B microcontroller that mediates between an Everdrive N8 Pro cartridge and an IDE CD drive, along with a PCM5102 audio DAC. The expansion port is hereby used to receive the audio samples on its audio mix input pin, along with power. After boot the game ROM is read off the CD by the MCU and streamed over USB to the Everdrive.
Combined with the previous work [Throaty Mumbo] did to revive the long-defunct Japanese online service for the NES, it’s an exciting time for fans of the iconic console.
Not sure I understand, it reads a ROM from a CD to write to a cartridge that already has a SD card which is faster and higher capacity? If it was using the NES I/O connector without needing an EverDrive, then I’d get it. Am I miss something obvious, or is it one of those “because I can” thing?
So many Hackaday projects operate on the rule of cool. It blows my mind how few people get that, haha.
It’s definitely cool! 😎
Indeed, and he’s overlooking that having so much memory on an NES is already a “because I can” flex with no practical application, no matter what media it uses. I think the full library of games is a little over 200mb, something like that
I do get that.
But I still find the use of both a connection to the expansion port AND a connection to the everdrive confusing. It seems like if you have one you wouldn’t need the other. But I haven’t watched the video yet so…
I think the “cool” is heavily impacted by the use of tools that basically already do most of what’s happening.
If he just used the Everdrive for a custom ROM that loaded game data from the CD attachment directly that would be much more interesting.
As it stands it is mostly just a somewhat interesting, if weird, Everdrive attachment.
Hm, maybe there’s a way to use unused pins on both the 72pin connector and the NES expansion port?
It’s just two to four pins (USB needs ground, 5v, data +, data -).
Then the EverDrive could be patched/updated to support this CD extension without an extra cable.
And homebrew games could start directly talking to the drive, too, maybe.
At worst, they would need contain an dedicated USB chip to talk to the drive, as an ordinary USB drive.
I just hope that the community will standardize on a pinout for such an USB pass-through..
He says around the 21 minute mark that reading off the SD card is much more practical, “but we’re not about practicality here, we’re about stupidity!” I.e. he’s doing something absurd for fun.
its the nintendo playstation, now someone just need to port Tekken, Crash, Spyro and Tony Hawk to 6502.
NOW you’re playing with POWER! lol