A hardware hacker called Throaty Mumbo has built a functional CD add-on for the Nintendo Entertainment System, using the console's mostly unused expansion port to pipe audio and power to a custom PCB. The board pairs an RP2350B microcontroller with an IDE CD drive and a PCM5102 audio DAC. On boot, the MCU reads the game ROM directly off the disc and streams it over USB to an Everdrive N8 Pro cartridge sitting in the standard cartridge slot.
The expansion port's audio mix input pin carries the CD audio samples into the NES signal chain, which is the detail worth understanding before you watch the demo video. Throaty Mumbo originally planned to replicate the prototype SNES CD unit, but pivoted to the NES precisely because the hardware constraints were harder. The full schematic and board files are on GitHub.
This is the second significant NES peripheral revival from this builder in 2026, following a working resurrection of the Famicom's long-dead Japanese online network service. Read the full piece to understand how the ROM streaming pipeline actually works and what the expansion slot was originally intended to do.
[READ ORIGINAL →]