What, no CD?

Nintendo shocked developers and gamers alike with the decision to remain with a cartridge format instead of CD’s, which appeared as the most favorable game media. This turned away many 3rd Party software developers who felt the cartridge did not have the storage capacity to handle their game projects (a weakness that hurt the Atari Jaguar).
Nintendo stuck by the cartridge format saying that it was the best media to use with the Ultra 64, and that CD’s would be plagued with extreme ‘load’ times. Also carts were more durable then CD’s which are prone to scratching (particularly with younger kids). Eventually Nintendo would put all doubts to rest in 1995 with a playable Super Mario 64 shown at a Japanese trade show. Super Mario 64’s lush 3D visuals were enough to regain interest in Nintendo’s new console.

On June 20th, 1996, the again renamed Nintendo 64 was released in Japan along with Super Mario 64 and two other games. It was then released in USA on 26 September in the same year with other countries following soon after.
The console was an immediate success, but a shortage of quality games began to slow system sales. Games were released in trickles. Developers found the cartridge format limiting. Effects such as Full Motion Video and large quantities of voiceover, music, and sound effects could not be reproduced due to the limited storage capacity (keep in mind however that N64 can produce CD quality sound).
Gamers found some of the N64 game releases cheaper on rival consoles CD formats (Carts had a high manufacturing price which was filtered down, naturally, to the consumer).
The same held for other game titles large in size (the more megabits the cart the / the higher the price).
Even with the small amount of game releases, Nintendo managed to releases amazing game titles based on franchise characters from their SuperNES / NES days. Also with help from RARE, the company that breathed new life into the SuperNES with “Donkey Kong Country”, The Nintendo 64 saw some great game exclusives that kept gamers happy with their console choice.
While 64-bit updates to popular SuperNES games was the way to go, it also created a Nintendo 64 stereotype of being a “Kiddy” console (although most of those supposed kiddy games are amazingly fun). Rival console manufacturers would use this stereotype to their advantage in an effort to attract older ‘hardcore’ gamers.

N64DD

Nintendo clearly understood that the cartridge storage abilities would limit 3rd Party developers. In 1997 they began announcing a device called the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive or N64DD for short. It would be a magnetic disk drive, which connected to the N64’s expansion port. The device would add an addition 4 megabytes of RAM to the N64, and offer 64 megabytes of additional read / writeable RAM for developers to create.
The disks could be used to add additional levels, maps, stats, and more to pre-existing games. This device saw numerous delays, and eventually was released in Japan only.
Other countries however did receive the N64 Expansion Pack. This accessory was released around 1998. It added an additional 4Mb of RAM . Games specifically made to take advantage of it’s capability could increase the games resolution, improve graphics, make levels larger, etc. For other games however it did nothing.
In the end Nintendo 64 was a remarkable machine that brought about innovation such as controller ‘rumble’ effects, and analog / digital controllers. The console was supported well into 2002, and sold over 30 million units worldwide. It also marked the end of the ‘Cartridge Era’.

Nintendo 64 Console Specs

Physical Dimensions: 10.25" x 7.5" x 2.9" 2.42 lbs
Power Supply (U.S.): Input: AC - 120V, 26W, 60Hz
Output: DC - 3.3V, 2.7A
Custom CPU: Custom 64-bit MIPS R4300i-class RISC CPU (93.75 MHz)
64-bit data path, registers, buffer
5-stage pipeline
CPU Benchmarks
125 Dhrystone MIPS (93 million operations/sec)
60 SPECint92
45 SPECfp92

Co-Processor: Custom 64-bit MIPS RISC "Reality Immersion" RCP (62.5 MHz)
Built-in Audio/Video Vector Processor (RSP)
RCP Benchmarks
Over half a billion (500,000,000) operations/sec
10 times more than some Pentium engines
Built-in Pixel Drawing Processor (RDP) takes care of:
Advanced Texture-Mapping
Detail Texturing
Tri-linear Mip Map Interpolation
Perspective Correction
Environment Mapping
Depth Buffering
Up to 150,000 polygons per second with the following features :
Color Combiner
Anti-Aliasing and Blending
Rasterizing
Z-Buffering
Automatic LOD Management
Vertex positioning and transformations
Depth, color and texture clipping
Transparency (256 levels max)
Gouraud Shading
Processor/Co-Processor Engine:
Contains Over 4 Million Transistors Total
Manufactured by NEC
Based on .35 Micron Process
Memory:
4 Megabytes (36 megabits) total RAM
Rambus DRAM subsystem
Transfers up to 562.5 MBytes/sec
Custom 9-bit Rambus Bus (to the DRAM)
Runs at 500 MHz max
Internal data bus to the RCP is 128-bit
Audio:
Stereo 16-bit
ADPCM Compression
Theoretically there can be up to 100 PCM channels
Each PCM channel takes 1% of the CPU time
Average number of channels will be 16-24
Wavetable Synthesis
Sampled at 48 KHz max
Internal Special Effects
Voice (w/ Pitch Shifting)
Gain and Pan
Reverb and Chorus
External (software) Effects Supported
Video:
Video Output
RF
Stereo A/V
S-Video
HDTV
Video and Resolution:
256 x 224 to 640 x 480
Limited by TV Standards
Flicker Free Interlace Mode
21-bit color output
32-bit RGBA Pixel Color Frame Buffer

Maximum: 16.8 million colors, 32-Bit RGBA
Pixel Color Frames Buffer Support
21-Bit color video output
16.8 million colors available
32,000 colors on screen at once

Controller Ports:
Four Controller Ports
Three-prong Feed
Controllers:
Digital joypad at left
Analog stick in middle
Six buttons on the right
Two 'B' and 'A' buttons
Four "C Group" buttons
Two 'L' and 'R' buttons on top
One "Z Trigger" button on the bottom
Memory card port on back
Initial memory packs start out at 256k
Different size packs (up to 2 MB) will be available
Expansion Options:
Cartridge Slot
Controller Ports
Extension Port (bottom)
Memory Expansion option (top front)
N64 Console Games:
Games begin at 32-128 Megabits
Uses JPEG image format for pre-rendered images
Produces polygon graphics on the fly
On-board hardware decompression; software optional
256 Megabit carts max; (four 64 meg ROMs)
Downward Compatible

Emulators

Project 64 - One of the best Emulators available
Daedalus - Another good emulator