Nintendo never released a CD-ROM gaming system. But for a while in the early 1990s, it flirted with the idea. That protracted will-they-won’t-they romance produced pages of breathless gossip columns ...

In 1994, multimedia discs—from encyclopedias to magazines—flooded the market, and felt like the future. It was fun while it lasted. At the time, it was the CD-ROM that had captured the imagination of ...