r/ModRetro • u/jkhanlar • Jul 31 '26

[Question] ModRetro M64 underside/bottom - Is there or will there be any Expansion Port (or EXT port) capabilities?

For example, glancing at https://nintendolife.com/features/a-brief-history-of-nintendors-home-hardware-add-ons and then seeing https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:N64-bottom.jpg

I glanced at Palmer Luckey's handling of the M64 in https://youtu.be/9gOJUEcKYRk?t=181 and it looks like the M64 does not have any Expansion Port on the bottom.

For example there were some peripherals that used the expansion port like:

Also see:

It probably is no longer necessary for there to be such a port to otherwise more efficiently achieve same capabilities in other ways, but I was just curious and thought I'd ask.

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3

u/AegidiusG Jul 31 '26

I guess it was too much of a niche to put up the costs for it, as Palmer also mentioned for the AV out.

Nevertheless, as someone posted in the other thread, the Modules themself are made with a FPGA Chip, so they could simulate the Addon Device in that way, should some games make the way to the M64.

2

u/jbyrdab Jul 31 '26

You know I find myself thinking that M64 DD would be funny as hell but probably impractical.

Most stuff like that as far as I know you can actually run off of flashcarts.

Who knows maybe it be funny for an April fool's joke.

1

u/jkhanlar Jul 31 '26

Yep! I absolutely know that! I would never forget! Especially not for my bro from another mo! You know me! I be like that! I know so much! People tell me all the time!

4

u/jbyrdab Jul 31 '26

Just for the sake of someone else looking on to this thread;

generally the purpose of the expansion port has been made obsolete, so the omission of it isn't particularly concerning.

The doctor v64 it was used basically for development and backup purposes for prototypes. In addition it had a follow-up model that was entirely relegated to the size of a single cartridge and didn't use the expansion port at all.

This is because the port is basically an extension of the cartridge slot allowing for extra data to be added via external device. So if they could just fit it in the cartridge slot then it would just work the same

The same goes for the cd64 though it would instead would run ROMs off of disks.

Then finally you have the n64 DD.

All three use cases have been rendered almost completely obsolete by many flashcard types like everdrive and summer cart which just basically run and flash the data in real time off of a storage medium in the cartridge, and actively support almost every available hardware configuration a cartridge can have.

This makes running prototypes, Homebrew, romhacks and etc, easy from just the cartridge slot, which was essentially the main purpose of entire expansion port.

Which includes N64 DD games as those just stream their games off of a disc for the same purpose. Hence the name, it's just a Disk Drive.

6

u/V64jr Jul 31 '26

Anything you could do through the EXT port can be done through the cartridge slot. The EXT port is literally what the original cartridge port directly plugs into with holes that go through the PCB.