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

 

Parts

Head here first to download the latest release UF2 of piconesPlus for Fruit Jam.

Enter RP2350 bootloader mode

Entering the RP2350 bootloader is easy. Complete the following steps.

Before you start, make sure your Fruit Jam is plugged into USB port to your computer using a data/sync cable. Charge-only cables will not work!

Turn on the On/Off switch - check that you see the ON light on so you know the board is powered.

To enter the bootloader:

1. Press and hold the BOOT/BUTTON1 button down. Don't let go of it yet!
2. Press and release the Reset button. You should still have the BOOT/BUTTON1 button pressed while you do this.
3. Continue holding the BOOT/BUTTON1 button until you see the RP2350 drive appear.
   
4. You can now release but BOOT/BUTTON1 button.

microSD Card Setup

Format a microSD card to FAT32 or exFAT and copy your legally acquired NES roms onto it. 

You can optionally organize your games into folders on the microSD card.

Metadata

Download the metadata pack from the releases page and extract its contents to the root of the SD card. It contains box art and game info for many games. The metadata is used in the menu to show box art and game info when a rom is selected. Press START to view the information. When the screensaver starts, random box art will be shown, bouncing around the screen.

To prep for play, hook up the Fruit Jam to power, video, audio, controllers, and micro SD card.

Plug in the following:

• Fruit Jam USB C Power & Data port to USB C power adapter
• Fruit Jam DVI-D Video Output to monitor/TV HDMI input via HDMI cable
• Fruit Jam Stereo Headphone output to headphones or powered speakers via 3.5mm stereo TRS cable
• USB gamepad to Fruit Jam USB 1 or USB 2 port (some controllers seem to prefer port 2)

Now, when you select "2 Player" in most games the second player will default to the I2C controller.

Classic Controller Only Support

When an USB controller is connected, the Wii-classic controller is Player 2. To use the Wii-Classic as Player 1, unplug the USB controller.

With everything wired up, turn on the Fruit Jam, the TV, and the speakers (or headphones) and play!

Menu Usage

Gamepad buttons:

• UP/DOWN: Next/previous item in the menu.
• LEFT/RIGHT: next/previous page.
• A (Circle): Open folder/flash and start game.
• B (X): Back to parent folder.
• START: Show metadata and box art (when available)

The colors in the menu can be changed and saved:

• Select + Up/Down changes the foreground color.
• Select + Left/Right changes the background color.
• Select + A saves the colors. Screen will flicker when saved.
• Select + B resets the colors to default. (Black on white)

When using an USB-Keyboard in menu:

• Cursor keys: Up, Down, left, right
• Z: Back to parent folder
• X: Open Folder/flash and start a game
• S: Show metadata and box art (when available).
• A: acts as the select button.

USB-keyboard: When using an USB-Keyboard in-game:

• D-pad keys: up, down, left, right
• A: Select
• S: Start
• Z: B
• X: A

Emulator (in game)

Gamepad buttons:

• SELECT + START, Xbox button: Resets back to the SD Card menu. Game saves are saved to the SD card.
• SELECT + UP/SELECT + DOWN: switches screen modes.
• SELECT + A/B: toggle rapid-fire.
• START + A : Toggle framerate display
• Fruit Jam Only
  • Button 1 (on board): Mute audio of built-in speaker. Audio is still output to the audio jack.
  • SELECT + UP: Toggle scanlines.
  • Button 2 (on board) or SELECT + RIGHT: Toggles the VU meter on or off -- NeoPixel LEDs light up in sync with the music rhythm

Save Games

For games which support it, saves will be stored in the /SAVES folder of the microSD card. Caution: the save ram will only be saved back to the microSD card when quitting the game via (START + SELECT)

USB Game Controller Latency

Using a USB game controller introduces some latency. The classic controllers over I2C have less latency.

As the Pico RP2350-based game console emulator field grows doesn't it feel limiting having to pick just one? Fear not, Frank Hoedemakers has created a new multi-emulator launcher called Retro Jam that solves this very issue!

Retro Jam combines the emulators Frank has ported to Fruit Jam into a single drag-and-drop .UF2 file with a launcher for these systems:

• Nintendo NES (including save states)
• Nintendo Game Boy
• Nintendo Game Boy Color
• Sega Master System (including save states)
• Sega Game Gear (including save states)
• Sega Genesis

Plus, there's a .wav player for just jamming to your favorite tunes.

You can see the Retro Jam in action in this video below:

Software Installation

First, download the latest retroJam release here.

Enter RP2350 bootloader mode

Entering the RP2350 bootloader is easy. Complete the following steps.

Before you start, make sure your Fruit Jam is plugged into USB port to your computer using a data/sync cable. Charge-only cables will not work!

Turn on the On/Off switch - check that you see the ON light on so you know the board is powered.

To enter the bootloader:

1. Press and hold the BOOT/BUTTON1 button down. Don't let go of it yet!
2. Press and release the Reset button. You should still have the BOOT/BUTTON1 button pressed while you do this.
3. Continue holding the BOOT/BUTTON1 button until you see the RP2350 drive appear.
   
4. You can now release but BOOT/BUTTON1 button.