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.

Many pieces of consumer electronics are build down to a price, and the corners cut show up in their performance. The Gameboy Advance from Nintendo is no exception: its audio is a PWM stream that sounds awful through the included amplifier. [Cajun Panda] has a fix though, in the form of a replacement audio chain.

It takes the form of a PCB that hooks into the pads of the removed GBA audio chip, and provides a much cleaner audio path with filtering and EQ and a class D audio amplifier. In addition there’s an audio codec and an ESP32 for Bluetooth connectivity, enabled by a long press of a GBA button and configured via a web interface on the ESP. Best of all there is no case modification, this is designed to remain as stock as possible.

Everything can be found in a GitHub repository should you wish to make your own, so if you want to bring your GBA audio up to scratch you know where to go. If you want to make it even better don’t forget, you can always upgrade the screen.

After previously putting a very basic version of Minecraft on the Game Boy Color, [Tobi] decided to have some fun and port that version also to the Super Nintendo (SNES), just to see what would happen with its more powerful hardware. Even without using an add-on chip like the Super FX 3D chip that made games like Star Fox and Doom possible with its 3D-rendered geometry, the basic SNES hardware can already provide a serviceable Minecraft experience.

You can download the SFC file here, featuring a starting world in which you can do all the usual Minecraft-ing shenanigans, like world destruction and construction. Unsurprisingly the game’s resolution is much higher than on the GBC, though the brief glimpse [Tobi] shows of Minecraft on the Game Boy Advance (GBA) with its proper 3D-rendering hardware are leaps ahead of what the basic SNES can do.

This of course raises the question of what Minecraft on the SNES could look like once you add the Super FX or similar 3D accelerator chips for the SNES into the mix. Rather than just being limited to sprite-based graphics and transformations, suddenly you can use real polygons.

As popular as the Nintendo Switch and its sequel are, it’s hard to argue that its click-on Joy-Con controllers are ergonomic, barring you having very uniquely shaped hands. This thought and a stack of Wii controllers led [KOUZEX] to the mad project of merging Joy-Cons and WiiMotes into what can affectionately be called Wii-Cons, or perhaps JoyMotes.

Suffice it to say that it’s not a very clean or easy mod, and you could definitely make the point that a custom PCB and 3D-printed shell would  have been a lot easier. Making space for the Joy-Con’s side rail, thumb stick and PCB without simply tossing the WiiMote’s PCB was a tough ask, and these are two WiiMotes that will never connect to a Wii again.

With the WiiMote-shaped Joy-Cons working pretty well after all that work, the issue of remapping Joy-Con buttons that have no match on WiiMotes was probably the biggest headache. Here having said custom version could be rather helpful to have more control over the button layout, also to not have to keep harvesting the dwindling supply of WiiMotes to make WiiCons. It might even be possible to keep all the WiiMote functionality that way, to really blow people’s minds when you use your fancy Joy-Cons to next play a game on an original Wii.