Using the Famicom Network System in 2026

Per Hackaday, a hobbyist recently brought a Famicom Network System back to life—a modem add-on Nintendo released in nineteen eighty-eight that connected consoles to online services in Japan, where it sold one hundred thirty thousand units despite limited market success. The original servers have been offline for decades, but with reverse-engineered documentation of the system's proprietary protocol and help from the NES Dev community, a YouTuber named Throaty Mumbo managed to get it working again using a telephone line simulator. After five months of work, he even created a patch that enabled two-player networked Super Mario Brothers—a feature that foreshadowed the multiplayer capabilities Nintendo would later perfect in its modern console services.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton