Family BASIC

[UglyJoe]

Ah.  That guy pretty much just translated the useful bits from that site that I linked you

Anyway, here's the page scans:

http://ximwix.net/storage/famibasic_play.zip

It has the two reference pages and also three pages that give some example songs.

[Hamburglar]

Thanks for the scans, I appreciate it.

Having tons of fun with this, is anyone else interested mainly in programming music on the Famicom in Basic?
The 3 channel limitation is a shame though.

[UglyJoe]

Another way to play music in Family Basic is to poke the audio registers.  You have to be familiar with how the hardware works, but I'm pretty sure it'd allow you to do more than the PLAY command.

http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=1408.msg16217#msg16217

[docmarionum1]

I'd love to play around with one of these.  The first programming language I ever used was a BASIC variant and I still have very fond memories of it.  I've also been meaning to try my hands at retro homebrew sometime this summer. 

[Xious]

Hi All,

I've seen references to a tool for the FDS that allows you to convert Family BASIC programmes from take to disk. Does anybody here know more about this? it would be super-neat and would allow people, like myself, to code games and to convert old TBAs out of magazines (ala RUN) for the Famicom and distribute them on disk instead of tape, so that more people could enjoy them.

For that matter, it's an easy jump from disk to ROM, so it would be possible to make new cart-based games this way as well.

There are some cart-based games that save via tape as well ('Wrecking Crew' on cartridge comes to mind)m, so I know it is possible to do this sort of thing without the FB cart. The Family Data Recorder connects to the keyboard, not the FB game cart, so all I'd need is an FDS app that reads from the tape and saves to a disk.

I know that this exists, but I don't have it. Does anybody here own it, or have any further information? I think it was released only in China...

Anyhow, presently I plan on converting some old text-based games, and when I do, I will see if I can post some WAV files of them for everybody to enjoy. (They are all PD anyway.)

I also have some Family BASIC KBs available if somebody wants to buy one and I have one extra Family BASIC v3 cart that I might sell or rent... I may even loan it to someone (trusted) who wants to program stuff with me or as a group. lastly, I have a huge library of old mags such as 'RUN', 'Compute's Gazette' and' InCider. ain addition to books on BASIC to share.

-Xious

[badgxs]

I`ve found this link which explains all the commands that are available in Family Basic V3:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/938747-family-basic-v3/faqs/59317

[Sebastien]

Hi everyone,

I came across this thread while looking for info about Family Basic.
I am currently translating the manual and posting the translation of each page on the following site:
http://volunteers.playpower.org/photo?xg_pw=&page=4

Please feel free to check these pages and leave any comment in order to improve the translation.

-Sebastien

[UglyJoe]

Very cool.  Keep up the good work

[Cloud64]

This isn't about family basic , but rather the system itself. On 'NESWORLD' there is a translation of a Japanese website about family basic: http://www.nesworld.com/fc-familybasic.php which has some information about what the system can actually do.

And it has an image of the sprites available for use:

[socram8888]

One day I were bored, I dumped manually byte by byte the G-BASIC from a Gold Leopard King famiclone (using a program that PEEK'd and shown me the ROM value). It seems that they're using FB 2.0 or FB 2.1 with some things removed (for example, the LOAD and SAVE commands are replaced by L[0x0C]AD and S[0x0C]AVE, but I don't know if the routines are still working or they where stripped as well)

If anybody is interested, here is a patch (in IPS, UPS and xdelta formats) for Family BASIC v2.1 (J) ROM with the SUBOR keyboard routine (extracted from the G-BASIC) included so you can flash it on a EPROM and use it on a Famiclone keyboard. You can test it with FCE Ultra setting the Famicom Expansion Port to "Subor keyboard"

http://www.mediafire.com/?fc84177a8ykymnb

[jpx72]

If anybody is interested, here is a patch (in IPS, UPS and xdelta formats) for Family BASIC v2.1 (J) ROM with the SUBOR keyboard routine (extracted from the G-BASIC) included so you can flash it on a EPROM and use it on a Famiclone keyboard. You can test it with FCE Ultra setting the Famicom Expansion Port to "Subor keyboard"

I LOVE YOU!
No, really, great work! And this IPS even changes the board requirement to (nonstandard) NROM! Since it's non standard and requires some RAM, it can be put together on the Mottzilla's 11-in-1 multicart loader to run as a MMC1 (SUROM)! I will definately test this with my UNIQUE famiclone, and I hope this time, the "ENTER" key won't write letter "E" anymore

By the way I wasn't able to find FB version 2.1 only 2.1a. Does it exist? Or do I have the correct version?

[cubelmariomadness]

Could have used Keyboard Tranformer instead. http://cah4e3.shedevr.org.ru/dumping/2011/Keyboard_Transformer_(R).rar

[jpx72]

Could have used Keyboard Tranformer instead. http://cah4e3.shedevr.org.ru/dumping/2011/Keyboard_Transformer_(R).rar

What mapper is that? Nestopia won't run it and FCEU is showing some unlicensed board info... but the size is 32+8kb, maybe it will work as NROM...
working LINK

[cubelmariomadness]

Beats me what mapper it is. He has a video of it running on a Famicom though, so it'd probably work there.

[jpx72]

Well he probably has the original cartridge... Without knowing the proper mapper (board type), you can't run it on hardware. That's why socram8888's IPS patch made me so happy