Nintendo 64

Glossary

Terms you will run into across this wiki, in plain language.

Flashcart: a cartridge with an SD card slot that loads game backups and homebrew from removable storage.
EverDrive-64: a popular commercial flashcart family made by Krikzz, sold in X5 and X7 versions.
SummerCart64: an open-source flashcart with USB and 64DD emulation features.
PIF chip: a small chip inside the console that checks region and security at boot. It is central to why PAL imports are harder than NTSC ones.
CIC: the lockout chip paired with the PIF; the console and cartridge must agree for a game to boot.
NTSC / PAL: the two TV standards. NTSC (60Hz) covers North America and Japan; PAL (50Hz) covers most of Europe and Australia.
NTSC-U / NTSC-J: the North American and Japanese flavours of NTSC.
Cart tab: small plastic tabs in the cartridge slot and on the cartridge shell that physically block out-of-region carts.
Passthrough: an adapter such as the N64 Passport that sits between cart and console to allow cross-standard games.
Expansion Pak: a 4MB RAM upgrade required by some games.
Jumper Pak: the placeholder module the Expansion Pak replaces.
64DD: a Japan-only magnetic disk drive add-on.
Homebrew: software made by the community rather than official publishers.

reference