NES reference guide

This page lists all major hardware reference divided by categories in their simplest form. From this list, you can drill down to a more specific section of the selected category.

General

• Glossary
• Cartridge and mappers' history

Hardware reference

• 2A03: APU, CPU
  • Obelisk 6502 Guide - CPU reference
• PPU
• Input devices
• Mappers
• Pinout
• Cycle reference chart for various PPU and frame-related timing details; includes CPU cycle counts
• Cartridge board
• RF Famicom wiring diagram (many parts also applicable to NES)
• Errata: Hardware bugs and quirks
• Famicom cartridge dimensions
• Console5 Tech wiki has schematics and information: Famicom, NES-001, NES-101

Miscellaneous

• Famicom - the original Japanese console
• Famicom Disk System
• Vs. System
• FamicomBox
• CIC lockout chip
• Myths
• PRG RAM circuit
• Implementing Mappers In Hardware
• Tutorial on reading circuits in Visual 6502/2A03/2C02
• RF modulator board
• Nintendo NES-001 on Console5
• Demo Vision
• Fonts - fonts used on official devices.
• List of games with significant regional differences
• Nintendo header - a metadata header found in ~33% of licensed NES games.
• Enri's Homepage: Famicom (Japanese) - transcription of some official Famicom documentation, and other notes.
• NES Music Ripping Guide by Chris Covell
• Battery holder - guide for adding a battery holder to an NES cartridge
• NES Classic Controller for Wii - guide for adapting an NES controller to Wii

File format reference

• iNES
  • NES 2.0
• UNIF
• NSF
• FDS
• IPS
  • description
  • file format specification
  • limitations and pitfalls
  • caveats and extensions

Emulation reference

• List of NES emulators
• Emulator tests
• Game bugs - games that display buggy behavior on the actual hardware
• Tricky-to-emulate games
• Sprite overflow games - games which use the sprite overflow bug of OAM
• Colour-emphasis games - games which make use of the colour emphasis bits of $2001
• Colour $0D games - games which use the infra-black colour $0D.
• Expansion audio games - Famicom games that use extra audio hardware.

Notes

• All content refer to the NTSC system unless otherwise specified

External links

• NESdev.org archive - Archive of the old NESdev webpage with many historical documents and links.
• NES-001 (frontloader) and NES-101 (toploader) Control Deck PCB maps on Console5 TechWiki