Hey everyone,
I know the Famicom computer can make simple programs and instances. Examples include graphic editors, music development, calculator, and financial records etc. My question is has anyone done anything extraordinary with the Famicom version of basic. Complex programs or extreme file management.
Comments and corrections are welcome. :)
I doubt it.
I think F-basic is for kids, for preliminary education purpose only.
Even the VBScript (by Microsoft) is far powerful than this 8-bit basic...
On 32-bit/64-bit platforms, you can develop much much more powerful programs and of course , more efficiency ( powerful IDEs)
I like Family BASIC because it is extremely easy to learn fast, so it's great for practicing to write large algorithms. You can write a lot of code in just a few short lines of commands. However, there isn't much variety in graphics and there isn't too much memory either. Also saving your programs is a hassle >:( I've never saved my programs, I just type up a copy on my laptop in a document file and retype it into the game when I want to execute it again :P My programs aren't that big, so it's not bad. I don't have a tape recorder to save the programs to and I don't know how to use audio recording software to save the program to my comp. I heard the audio must first be amplified before it is recorded?
Yeah you might have to run it through an amplifier to record it. I haven't succeeded though, so I just use a tape recorder.
The most advanced programs I've seen is the one playing Space Harrier music (by poking the audio register), a program that writes all CHR data pixel by pixel on screen using characters as pixels and of course UglyJoe's R.O.B. controlling program. That last program is mostly a subroutine written in 6502 but it's done on Family Basic.
80sFREAK is working on a Famibe modification that will have an assembler and SD card module, so that could maybe actually be used for homebrew development. It might still be more convenient to use a modern PC though.
I have 6502 disassembler written in Family Basic(almost completed) without any machine code subroutines. It takes about 3/4 of avaliable memory.
By "hiding" machine code under the REM, you can make about 1.5K size programms. Using ROM's subroutines can help little bit, but code will become dependent on FB version. Also possible to unpack some code into SYSRAM