Update: Translation complete! See my most recent posts for details.
I just got Family Basic with manual in good condition so I thought I could give translating it a try.
Of course this is a hobby project so I'm not making any promises on anything.
BASIC Introductory Compilation
A complete translation of the BASIC Introductory Compilation part of the manual (except page 14 and 15 but they are just front pages to the compilation) and everything after it can be found here http://volunteers.playpower.org/profile/SebastienVanDamme so everything from page 16 and on is already translated by this person. Note that he named the back cover "FamilyBASIC118" but it's actually page 114 so nothing is missing.
Edit: The above link seems to be dead so I took the liberty to upload his translation here http://www.sendspace.com/file/aw8t9g (84 MB).
Edit: It's now hosted on Famicom World. It has been turned into an PDF and has the CALL page inserted and translated http://famicomworld.com/Personal/uglyjoe/FamilyBasicManual.pdf.
Scans
I couldn't find any scans of the Japanese manual anywhere so I just scanned the missing pages including the pink insert and the separate character chart myself. I'm not very good at scanning but everything should be readable and I included edited versions of two of the pages that was hard to read. Also I haven't converted it to any lossy format yet so beware of large file sizes: https://famicomworld.com/Personal/uglyjoe/fabaman_p.zip (187 MB)
Edit: It's now hosted on Famicom World, so the link shouldn't die.
Translation
Latest version can be downloaded here: Edit: It's now at the attachment at the bottom of this post.
Initial version
Pink insert is translated. I started on the table of contents on the front cover inside (page 0) and page 1 but it doesn't contain any new information so I skipped the rest and will come back to it later. Page 2 is also translated but see translator's notes on that page.
As usual in my translation projects anyone are free to contribute with helping with the translation, inserting the translation, commenting, making suggestions or other things.
Or as they say "commercially available item".
Thank you 80s FREAK and Manuel!! :D I couldn't find 市敗品 in any dictionary or even by googling it.
Update time
- Changed 市敗品 to "commercially available item" on page 2.
- Page 3 is translated. Note that I translated parts of this page long ago but with mistakes. Now it's hopefully correct.
- Ran a spell check. Forgot to do this before! ;D
Page 4 and 5 are also almost done but I have run into two other problems on page 5:
1) On the top of the page to the right of Mario there is a box with the red text "キーボード名キーの名称と使い方". I'm not sure what they mean.
2)
On the bottom of the page where the explanation for the DEL key is: On the picture there are letters ABCXDE and to show how the DEL key works they want to delete the X. First it says to move the cursor to the character to the right of X and then it says "DELキーを押すと"Ｘ"が消え、"Ｄ"より右の文字がつまります。". Tsumaru means to block or clog according to the dictionary. I can't make sense of this.
(http://i46.tinypic.com/311q5c4.jpg)
Yeah I also thought that it could be that the cursor is covering the letter D so I translated it to that for now. If anyone has an idea don't hesitate to post here!
BTW UglyJoe mentioned once that there is a version of the manual that are missing the CALL command on page 69, and I noticed that the other guy's translated scans happens to be one of those. Thankfully the CALL command on page 69 isn't missing in my manual (for the record, I have V2.0A) so I translated that part of the page.
Update timeThis time there is some useful information (like the quick-start function) and mentions of a mysterious Biorhythm Board.
- I uploaded a text file with the whole translation including this update.
- Page 4 and 5 are translated. See my previous post for the problems I'm having with page 5.
- Page 6 and 7 are also translated. No problems here.
- The CALL command explanation on page 69 is translated. I also added the CALL command entry in the index (page 50) and the appendix (page 110).
- I scanned page 69. The link can be found on the first post (Edit: The link expired so I removed it but it's now included with the other pages I scanned).
Edit: I learned that the Biorhythm Board exists in in place of the Message Board in Sharp Playbox Basic. More info: http://www.sara.to/sigure/trea/h10.html click on the link to see screen shots.
The CALL statement explanation looks good to me. I'm not sure why it would want/need you to CLEAR the address that comes before the subroutine, though.
In the CLEAR explanation on page 55 it says that CLEAR both clears variables and stuff and at the same time assigns memory space so that BASIC won't automatically take it back again. When using BASIC together with assembly it's necessary to assign memory space for the assembly subroutine so that BASIC won't snatch it for its variables and such. ...or so I understood it. I might be way off base though.
Hmm...I didn't know that CLEAR did any kind of memory reservation. I thought it just cleared out any variables that were still in memory. I'll admit I've never tried passing it a memory address, though.
Ah. That makes sense then.
Yeah it's confusing. An explanation of CLEAR can also be found at page 61 and there it just says that it resets all variables and stuff. Anyway thanks for confirming my translation! :)
I've been busy and the translating have become slower. But I have a goal to do some translation work every day so it's always progressing and it's not that much left now so I think this will be done some time soon! :D
Update time
- Page 8 and 9 translated!
- I made another attempt to put the translation in spoiler clauses on the first post and it seems to work fine until the end of page 5 when it goes bold and other weird things, but only a few pages are affected and the latest version of the translation can be downloaded as a txt file.
On page 8 there is a rather confusing explanation of how many brackets you can use in a formula on the Calculation Board. The manual seems to say that you can use 10 brackets inside a one-folded bracket but I'm not sure what that means. I can't test it right now since my Family Basic cart won't boot! :(
I finally got my Family Basic cart to work again but I can't use brackets on the Calculator Board at all! All I get is デキマセン (can't do). I guess I'm doing something wrong.
Update time
- Page 10 and 11 translated! (Latest update can be found in the first post as always.)
- There are lot's of musical terms I'm not familiar with so I expect it to be full of errors.
Page 10 (Music Board explanation) was a bit tough to translate. I haven't tried out the Music Board yet and the explanations aren't always very clear.
Post Merge: February 02, 2013, 10:54:15 am
First some rambling: I found another thing in my manual that's different from the other guy's scans. On page 45 there is a picture of a tape recorder. In my manual it's just a generic tape recorder while in his translated scans it's the official Nintendo Data Recorder. Sounds like I have an earlier revision of the manual than him. That makes me wonder why the CALL command is missing from his manual. My manual has an A on the top-right corner of the front cover (as in Revision A I believe).
Update time:
- Page 12 and 13 translated
- Page 14 and 15 also finally translated!
I'm finally done!! Well I still have the table of contents but at least all information of the whole manual should now be in understandable English! Though it's formatted for easy insertion rather than easy reading, and all the pictures and stuff are missing (it's just a txt file).
All that is left now is to proofread and see if I can make better/shorter English sentences (anyone are free to help), to insert the translated script into the scanned pictures and maybe make a PDF or something out of it so it gets easier to read.
If anyone are interested in helping with inserting the script, just make a post here and I will try to hurry up with the proofreading. Be sure to tell me if I need to upload the scans in some other manner (they are quite big).
Yeah the pink insert that was included with my Family Basic, advertised the Data Recorder since it hadn't been released yet at the time. Hinting that my revision is the older one.
Quote from: 80sFREAK on February 02, 2013, 04:09:26 pm
If v2.0 exist, where is v1.0? And maybe this version does not support CALL and some others.
People say v1.0 wasn't released but there are some screen shots of it here http://www.sara.to/sigure/game/g12/index.html the ones to the left are Family Basic and the ones to the right are Sharp's Playbox Basic. Both seems to be v1.0 but "Sharp" and "Nintendo" has swapped places.
BTW the biorhythm program from Playbox Basic still exists in Family Basic in the form of The computer's fortune telling.
1) On the top of the page to the right of Mario there is a box with the red text "キーボード名キーの名称と使い方". I'm not sure what they mean.
Without reading everything I'm not sure either. :-[
Without knowing any context I'd translate it like:
"Names and usage for the name keys on the keyboard."
名キーwould be "name key" if there's any keys like that.
2)
On the bottom of the page where the explanation for the DEL key is: On the picture there are letters ABCXDE and to show how the DEL key works they want to delete the X. First it says to move the cursor to the character to the right of X and then it says "DELキーを押すと"Ｘ"が消え、"Ｄ"より右の文字がつまります。". Tsumaru means to block or clog according to the dictionary. I can't make sense of this.
"tsumaru" here just means that the other letters that come afterwards (namely DE) will "move up" i.e. there won't be a blank space where you delete the X. After deleting the X the text will read ABCDE and not ABC_DE.
I hope that helped. :yoshi:
Quote from: 80sFREAK on February 03, 2013, 05:10:44 pm
Thanks for the link. "1983 BYTES FREE" - interesting.
Haha one whole whooping byte more than V2! I didn't notice that. :D
Oh thank you Manuel this helps allot!! ;D
Quote from: manuel on February 17, 2013, 09:46:39 pm
1) On the top of the page to the right of Mario there is a box with the red text "キーボード名キーの名称と使い方". I'm not sure what they mean.
Without reading everything I'm not sure either. :-[
Without knowing any context I'd translate it like:
"Names and usage for the name keys on the keyboard."
名キーwould be "name key" if there's any keys like that.
Yeah I guess the context isn't obvious just from my post. The "red box" (I noticed there's not much red in it :-[) I'm talking about can be found in the top of every section in the manual and it usually ends with the "How to..."-like 使い方, 方法 and such. Since page 5 is a continuation of page 4 the "red box" can be seen as a reminder of what the current section is about.
(http://s3.postimage.org/zei7u18qb/tukaikata.jpg)
There's no 名キー or name key unfortunately. I assumed they just meant that they are explaining what every key is called and how to use them. So my translation goes like: "The names of the keys and how to use them".
Quote from: manuel on February 17, 2013, 09:46:39 pm
2)
On the bottom of the page where the explanation for the DEL key is: On the picture there are letters ABCXDE and to show how the DEL key works they want to delete the X. First it says to move the cursor to the character to the right of X and then it says "DELキーを押すと"Ｘ"が消え、"Ｄ"より右の文字がつまります。". Tsumaru means to block or clog according to the dictionary. I can't make sense of this.
"tsumaru" here just means that the other letters that come afterwards (namely DE) will "move up" i.e. there won't be a blank space where you delete the X. After deleting the X the text will read ABCDE and not ABC_DE.
Aha now I see! Allright I guess it says something like this: "By pressing [DEL] key "X" will be erased, and "D" and the other characters to the right will move up and cover the space."
Quote from: 80sFREAK on February 18, 2013, 12:28:22 am
P.S. it's always tricky to translate tech stuff. You have to know subj first.
True that!
Problem solved. ;D
I looked at the scan. It's not 名キー, but 各キー. ;)
The kanji look a bit similar, but they're different.
So the translation is just "Names and usage of all keys on the keyboard."
OOOPS!! Sorry about that! :-[ It's not the first time I mix up the two together. I'll be more careful from now on!
Anyway that explains why it didn't make sense! Thank you! :D
Update time
- I reuploaded some dead links in the first post. The SebastienVanDamme site (the one who translated the BASIC part of the manual) seems to be down so I uploaded his translated pages in the first post. The CALL description page (page 69) is now also included with the other pages I scanned instead of a separate link.
- The table of contents (page 0 and 1) is now also translated. I made sure they match VanDamme's translation. Now this means... :drumroll:
TRANSLATION V1.0 COMPLETE!!Now there are probably errors and the translation is certainly not perfect but at least it's ready for release. Now we just need to insert the translation.
I also have started on another Family BASIC related translation project...Edit (13-06-19):Updated bad links in first post.
I also have more info about NS-HuBASIC versions. This is what I heard:
V0.0
Used in Playbox Basic prototype.
V1.0
Used in Playbox Basic and Family Basic launch version.
V2.0A
Used in a newer revision of Family Basic. Supposedly people who called Nintendo and complained could trade their V1.0 version for this one for free. SCR$ function was added.
V2.1A
Used in the last revision of Family Basic. Bug(s) in V2.0A fixed (I would like to know what bugs).
V3.0
Version used in Family Basic V3 with lots of new functions and even sample games. Famibe V3 is considered a separate game with its own manual that assumes that you already have the original Famibe manual and keyboard (since the keyboard wasn't sold separately).
Hey, I know you didn't translate page 88, but I have a few small corrections:
- The description for the "E" parameter says "X axis inversion", but it should be "Y axis inversion".
- The last sentence of the first paragraph of the "Explanation" starts, "When specifying 4", but it should be "When specifying 1".
Hey there.
I am pretty new to the whole Famicom topic, but just got my Family Basic, along with all the manuals. Google pointed me here, and I am really glad that someone started translating it. ;) However all the links above are dead. Could someone please put those files online again?
Thanks a million.
cheers.
Welcome to Famicom World Dandee and thanks for notifying me about the dead links. I try to keep updating them now and then but they often go bad. However only my own scans seems to have gone bad so I updated that one. All the others works for me except for playpower.org, but you can download those file in the link below it. Don't hesitate to tell me again if any links needs to be re-uploaded though.
My scans are now in 7-zip format so they are a few MB smaller now.
Quote from: UglyJoe on July 04, 2013, 04:37:20 pm
Hey, I know you didn't translate page 88, but I have a few small corrections:
- The description for the "E" parameter says "X axis inversion", but it should be "Y axis inversion".
- The last sentence of the first paragraph of the "Explanation" starts, "When specifying 4", but it should be "When specifying 1".
Thanks for reporting these. I have found a few errors myself that should be fixed before all pages are merged into one document.
List of errors:
- Page 17: "★Let's prepare our programing" is missing.
- Page 35: [STOP]-key is missing.
- Page 88: The description for the "E" parameter says "X axis inversion", but it should be "Y axis inversion". (Thanks UglyJoe!)
- Page 88: The last sentence of the first paragraph of the "Explanation" starts, "When specifying 4", but it should be "When specifying 1". (Thanks UglyJoe!)
Uploading page 69 with the CALL command translated.
Download link: http://s30.postimg.org/e0vrt8j0h/Family_BASIC69_expanded.png
(http://s30.postimg.org/e0vrt8j0h/Family_BASIC69_expanded.png) (http://postimage.org/)
preview image
Sebastien said he used the font Free Sans that comes with gimp so I was able to make this.
if anybody interested - I cleaned and optimized translated scans of Basic manual from the first post and compiled it to pdf (with updated p.69).
http://rghost.ru/7FZGpx2nD
here is an example:
(http://savepic.org/6958817.jpg)
(and here is cleaned jpegs http://rghost.ru/8jH8y8zJL )
Good job!
Quote from: Oreanor on March 13, 2015, 02:05:26 am
if anybody interested - I cleaned and optimized translated scans of Basic manual from the first post and compiled it to pdf (with updated p.69).
Very cool! Do you mind if I host the PDF on Famicom World's server (in case the rghost links die)?
Quote from: UglyJoe on March 13, 2015, 06:24:50 am
Quote from: Oreanor on March 13, 2015, 02:05:26 am
if anybody interested - I cleaned and optimized translated scans of Basic manual from the first post and compiled it to pdf (with updated p.69).
Very cool! Do you mind if I host the PDF on Famicom World's server (in case the rghost links die)?
do not mind at all. as you wish.
Cool. Here's the FW link: FamilyBasicManual.pdf (http://famicomworld.com/Personal/uglyjoe/FamilyBasicManual.pdf)
I added the link to the first post. I also updated the dead manual scan link.
Hi P,
I only just found out the joys of BASIC on the NES using a cheap Chinese keyboard NES I had laying about...
I found that these forums are the best resource on the internet for the official manuals, thanks for all your hard work :)
I really want to make LaTeX indexed PDF versions of both the V2 & V3 Manuals, in Japanese & English versions...
Using Inkscape I can make optimized color vectors of any images used in the manuals, for the best quality.
I have the original scans for V3 Manual from your V3 forum post,
but the sendspace link for V2 Manual on the 1st page of this post is not working (187.05 MB) :(
I would really love the original scans of this V2 manual to work with, so if you could re-upload I would be very grateful.
Also with your permission I will upload these original scans to archive.org, so they are never lost again ;)
BTW, did any manual exist for V1? If so are there any scans for this anywhere?
Thanks for all your help on this subject P =D
Oh those files go down all the time and I keep re-uploading them.
Quotewith your permission I will upload these original scans to archive.org, so they are never lost again Wink
I would be grateful if you did that! :)
I don't if much has changed in the manuals between V1 and V2, I have seen two different versions of V2 only with quite a number of smaller changes. My V2 manual mentions the Biorythm Board that only exists in the Playbox Basic version. Maybe it's something remaining from the Playbox Basic manual, or it was added to the manual before it was decided that the Biorythm Board should be turned into the fortune teller.
Wow thanks for the quick response P, & for the extra info about V1 manual.
I downloaded the 187.05MB pack you re-uploaded for me, thanks so much for that :)
I noticed that there is only pages 1..16 & extra pink insert + character map in that file...
Do you know where I could get a Japanese set of scans for V2 manual for pages 17 onwards?
Would really help with my LaTeX conversion, as I would love to preserve all Japanese original text.
Thanks for your help on this P =D
Unfortunately I only scanned what was missing from the old translation. I could scan the rest but it would take some time, and also I can't use my scanner at the moment for various reasons. I will try to fix it when I have time and maybe I could resume the scanning work. Note that the manual I scanned, although it's for V2, have some smaller changes from the old scanlated manual (which is also V2).
Ah thanks for the explanation, I understand now, would of course be amazing if you do manage to scan the rest of your V2 manual :)
Thanks P for all your help, & good luck with your other translation projects =D
Hello!
Where i can find V2 japanese scanned pdf file? (or jpg files)
I don't know, I've never seen one. The pages I scanned are the only ones I know of, I never scanned the whole manual.
Maybe you will reupload your scanned pages? All links are dead
Internet says V2 pdf japanese scan was on the http://page.freett.com/familybasic/index.html, but this site is dead too
English translation is here:
Quote from: UglyJoe on March 13, 2015, 08:01:07 am
Cool. Here's the FW link: FamilyBasicManual.pdf (http://famicomworld.com/Personal/uglyjoe/FamilyBasicManual.pdf)
Not sure if the Japanese version scans are still around. The link you provided never had the manual on it (just some basic information and some sample programs).
Quote from: UglyJoe on July 08, 2017, 07:19:28 am
English translation is here: http://famicomworld.com/Personal/uglyjoe/FamilyBasicManual.pdf
Not sure if the Japanese version scans are still around. The link you provided never had the manual on it (just some basic information and some sample programs).
Thank you, but I'm not looking for a English V2 translation, need JP V2. And it was here (not all pages), just need to re-upload:
QuoteScans
I couldn't find any scans of the Japanese manual anywhere so I just scanned the missing pages including the pink insert and the separate character chart myself. I'm not very good at scanning but everything should be readable and I included edited versions of two of the pages that was hard to read. Also I haven't converted it to any lossy format yet so beware of large file sizes: https://www.sendspace.com/file/xxgx8f (187.05 MB)
If you need me to re-upload it to another host, just give a word.
I reuploaded my scans in the first post.
Thank you!
Very colorful and cute pages. (maybe even more beautiful than v3)
If anybody have a Basic v2 book - can you fully scan it?
So great! Thank you very much!
btw. Is the link to japanese scan dead again?
Not anymore!
Hm, it seems https://ufile.io/5bh14 (187.05 MB) is unavailable.. Can anyone reupload to a more lasting place? I would like to download but link does not work.
It's reuploaded!
Quote from: P on October 28, 2017, 01:55:45 am
It's reuploaded!
Do you mind if I upload it to the FW server so the link won't die in the future?
Oh please do! :D
Okay, hosted on FW now: https://famicomworld.com/Personal/uglyjoe/fabaman_p.zip (https://famicomworld.com/Personal/uglyjoe/fabaman_p.zip)
Thanks! :D I added the link to the first post!
I read through this thread and I haven't seen a translation of this manual. Does anyone know if this one has been translated? It is 87 pages, there is only 2 color pages in the beginning and the rest is standard plain paper used in books with B&W pictures.
I'm working on a couple Family Basic articles. Is it OK if I link to the top of the main post to point people to the English translation of the manual?
The articles will probably go on: https://www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/
Yes, that's fine. Thanks for the head's up ;D
Quote from: UglyJoe on November 24, 2021, 12:39:10 pmYes, that's fine. Thanks for the head's up ;D
Thank you! It's really a great resource and everyone involved did an amazing job at making it feel like an actual released manual.