Nesdev Wiki

Welcome to Nesdev Wiki,

the source for all your NES programming needs.

734 articles in English

NES reference guide Reference section covers the NES architecture by category.	Programming guide This section complements the NES reference guide. It provides tutorials and articles to the most common needs during NES development.
Projects Post your demos, full games, and current projects here.	Emulators A list of NES/Famicom emulators, both well-established and those under development.
NESdev BBS Cannot find what you're looking for? Come visit us on the bulletin board where many talented individuals contribute everyday to the community.	#NESdev Need some answers now? Then come visit us on the EFnet #NESdev channel where many individuals can provide some instant help.
NESdev Discord server Join us on Discord for on-topic discussion about NES programming, audio, graphics, hardware, research, and emulator development.
Mirrors and Archives archive.nes.science

Current news

2022-05-28

We've launched a new SNESdev wiki, which uses the same wiki accounts as NESdev. The goal is to have a community resource for the SNES just like we have for the NES, covering the same kinds of topics with similar organization. Wiki account creation is also enabled again, so new users can set up their own accounts now without having to reach out to an admin.

2021-12-04

The forums are fully back online now and can be used just as before. Login information and emails were lost for a small number of accounts, so if you can't log in or reset your password, please reach out to us using the Contact Administrator feature. We've also enabled some new anti-spam functionality, which should hopefully cut down on the deluge of spam posts. As for the wiki, account creation is now handled on a case-by-case basis, so if you'd like to contribute, please reach out to Fiskbit or lidnariq on the forums or ask on the NESdev Discord server.

2021-10-16

Login information from the old wiki has been transferred to nesdev.org for all accounts that have not yet reset their passwords, so everyone should now have access to their accounts again and can continue making updates as usual. Any new passwords will remain in effect. We are continuing to try to get clarity on ownership of the nesdev.com domain, and reopening of the forums is coming. We appreciate everyone's patience!

2021-09-28

In response to the months of ongoing issues on nesdev.com and the inability to reach the administrator, the decision was made to migrate the site to nesdev.org using the data we were able to scrape from the old site. Coincidentally, the day after we moved the wiki, we finally heard back from the admin and have gotten access to the nesdev.com server, allowing us to get the full databases, including account information and private messages. This has thrown a bit of a wrench into our migration plans and we're paused for the moment as we work out the right way forward, including the fate of the nesdev.com domain itself.

Here on the nesdev.org wiki, a new password can be requested for any account with an associated email address, though you should keep your old password handy as we may be restoring the account information from nesdev.com in the near future. We recognize not all accounts have an email address; if yours is one of them, please hold tight for a little while as we get things sorted. Whether we stay on nesdev.org or get the nesdev.com domain back, we intend to keep any changes made to the .org wiki, so continue making updates as usual.

Regarding the forums, the issue was that 358 users were completely deleted, perhaps related to mass registration of spam accounts. Thankfully, all of their posts and private messages still exist in the database. Using the newest available forum backup, we've been able to restore the oldest 114 of these accounts, leaving 244 for which we have usernames, but no email or password. We don't have any good way of handling account recovery for these users and it will have to be done on a case-by-case basis, but we do want to get you back into your accounts where possible.

Going forward, we intend to make some changes to improve the site and its reliability. We will be having daily backups to avoid ever having data loss like we have now, as well as multiple administrators who are active in the community so we can respond to issues in a timely fashion and not risk getting locked out of the servers. We will also be making changes to combat spam, with the specific mechanisms still under discussion. Feedback and suggestions are welcome in the #website-support channel on the NESdev Discord server. The timetable for all of this is to-be-determined, as we work out the domain situation with the previous admin and work around some real-life scheduling constraints over the next 2 weeks. We'll keep you posted!

2021-08-19

A read-only version of the forums is now available at forums.nesdev.org. This is based on scrapes that were done after the corruption to the user data. All posts should be present, but there are currently some errors and many missing attachments that are being manually sorted through. Feedback should be directed toward the NESdev Discord server. Still no ETA on a fix for the original forums.

2021-08-03

The forums are currently down due to issues with the users table. Post contents are all still intact. No ETA yet on a fix.

2017

Email appears broken again after a server move.

2016-05-27

Email is working again after having been broken for the past year. If you registered within the past year but were not able to confirm your address, request confirmation again to enable mainspace editing and watchlist notifications.

2015-03-15

We have upgraded to the latest version of MediaWiki. Details are available.

2014-09-11

Previous support for syntax highlighting through the <source> directive has been removed due to parsing errors (highly incompatible with many 65xxx assembler syntaxes), lack of continued support via official MediaWiki channels, and lack of official 6502 syntax highlighting (was maintained separated by Thefox). These issues were discussed throughly on the forum. All pages (excluding User pages) using the <source> directive have been changed to use <pre> instead.

2013-09-25

Tepples is occasionally making HTML snapshots of the wiki.

2013-06-09

This wiki now supports footnotes using the Cite.php extension.

2013-02-21

All users who had been manually confirmed under the old account policy have had their trusted status restored even if they have made no edits, much as with manual confirmation on Wikipedia. There's also a new group called rollbackers whose members can revert vandalism in one click, a privilege they share with administrators.

2012-10-18

We have seen the first wave of distributed talk page vandalism since this new open anonymous talk posting policy was put in place. The ABUSE filter is keeping their changes from taking effect; see what has been blocked.

2012-09-25

We're trying a new method of stopping spam, one that has worked on Pin Eight. We're using a question-and-answer challenge (with questions to be determined later) to block creation of accounts by generic MediaWiki spambots. The talk namespaces have been unlocked, and two constructive talk edits qualify a user account for automatic promotion to trusted status after four days. A filter for applying regular-expression-based heuristics to actions by users, such as edits, will be put in place.

2012-09-24

This wiki moved away from Parodius Networking. We are no longer using role accounts.

2012-03-11

Recently we've had a rash of spambots polluting Recent Changes. It wasn't with actual edits but instead with new user account registrations, which have even begun to outnumber legitimate edits. So there's a new policy: only a logged-in user can create a new user account. If you want a wiki account, find a triumvir and PM him on the BBS.

2012-01-08

The weekly archive ("local html version") of the wiki has been disabled for the time being (you will receive HTTP 404/file not found). The reason is documented here and still under discussion, but until a solution is found, for the time being the weekly archive is disabled.