8-Bit NES CDROM Expansion Concept

Tito from Macho Nacho Productions recently posted a video showcasing the NESCD project that (as the name suggests) adds CDROM support to the original NES. The project is essentially a custom board with an RP2350B, that connects to an IDE CDROM drive, as well as an Everdrive’s “USB developer’s port”. Then you can run patched NES roms via CD that also include CD-quality soundtracks. You can even run FMV on it, just with the limitations of NES hardware. Basically, you can think of this as “MSU-1 audio for the NES”. Tito’s video shows it in action, with more thoughts below the links:

NESCD: https://github.com/ThroatyMumbo/NESCD
FMV Support: https://somethingnerdy.com/downloads/
Support Tito: https://www.patreon.com/MachoNachoProductions

I love projects like this, as while it’s definitely not practical, it’s a lot of fun. And as Tito pointed out in the video, it would have technically been possible in the NES’s heyday, as CDROM addons for consoles had just started with the PC Engine CDROM. Realistically, if it did happen in the 80’s, it would have been a Japan-only thing and probably would have looked near identical to the Famicom Disk System, just with a CDROM drive instead of a floppy drive. Check out my hilariously bad example I slapped together in Krita as a visual queue 🙂

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