Nearly 40 years on, the original Nintendo Entertainment System (or Famicom in Japan) still holds a certain mystique, with genre-defining games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.
The console remains a popular target for emulation, which is what we’ll do here on the Fruit Jam paired with an HDMI TV or monitor for display. You've got several controller options for single player or two player using a USB gamepad and/or a Nintendo Wii Classic/NES Classic/SNES Classic controller over I2C with a breakout board.
The software for this guide is Frank Hoedemakers’ pico-infonesPlus — which came from Jay Kumogata’s InfoNES, ported to RP2040 by Shuichi Takano (building on Luke Wren’s PicoDVI library), Frank’s work on the SD card and game menu, Gavin Knight for metadata file work, and some controller code from Adafruit. That’s a lot of pieces…but you can use a ready-made .UF2 file to make installation easy.
In this latest version, Frank has ported it to Fruit Jam and included support for:
- DAC headphone output
- Onboard speaker output
- NeoPixel VU meter
- Two player gaming with one USB controller plus a second I2C Nintendo classic controller (Wii-chuck style)
- Screensaver using metadata-based game info and box artwork
Looking for some ROMs? Check out some of these excellent NES homebrew games!
Wii Classic Controller
Controllers with the Wii nunchuck port can be used along with this breakout adapter and a STEMMA QT cable. These are highly responsive controllers option, with less lag than USB controllers.
These were made for use with the Wii in the case of the Wii Classic Controller and the NES Classic Mini and SNES Classic Mini consoles.
Page last edited September 11, 2025
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