Famicom World

Recently, I've messaged our resident translator and japanese guru manuel and asked him if he would be willing to translate the large and rather thick Family BASIC manual.

The following is an abridged version of what he had to say:

"As for the Family Basic manual translation, of course I'd be willing to do it.  Length might be a problem, though. The manual has 140 pages, and I estimate about 300 Japanese characters per page on average, which comes to 42000 characters to translate. Even at 0.6 cents per character (which would make a very BAAAD hourly rate) this would make around 250$. The minimum rate I'm mostly working for in Japan now is around 6cents (US) per Japanese character. Normally a document like that would cost about 2000-2500$ to translate, and I'm on the cheap side when compared to other translators.

I don't want to seem greedy, but I fear I couldn't go far under 200-250$ if you asked me for a fixed price. I know it sounds expensive, but there's just very much work involved."

Taking all that into account, the price range he offered sounds very reasonable, but even still, is a lot to spend on a translation for a manual of a hobby, and is above the range I would be willing or able to send singlehandedly. 

Then I got an idea. I know I'm not the only one who wants an English guide to using the Family BASIC system. What if other people were willing to donate some money towards this goal? Even if the rest of the community was willing to generate even half of the price, I'd consider it worthwhile.

So yeah. the question is: would you be willing to donate for a Family BASIC manual English translation?




Side note: I want the entire manual translated, but it has come to my attention that there are other sources to learn BASIC, so for people who already know BASIC, it might be best for them as well as the cost if we only get the Family BASIC specific information translated.

Since I have a copy of the manual now, I'd rather ask and pay manuel just for portions I need translated.  Should the need arise, I'll post whatever I get translated for the forum to see.

For what it's worth, I can see myself doing some tutorial videos for Family Basic some time after the site relaunch.

I'd be willing to donate. It would help out an awesome member with the added benefit of knowledge of how to use my Family Basic. Win-win situation IMO. Maybe you could offer a prize to the highest donor, kinda like what was done with the FDS disk-writing donation.

I'm definitely willing to donate ,this should absolutely be translated by a famicom fan, they need to understand the context.  Count me in.

Okay! I'm glad to see that people are with me on this. What are you guys willing to donate? Like I said, if even half of the $250 can be covered by other donations, I'd consider it magnificent..

I'll donate $20, may not be much but it's all I can afford.  If we donate do we get a nice printed version or an early release? lol :D

Someone a while back on a blog was looking for Famicom Basic to be translated, get hold of him!! Google is the king but I'll dig a link up later on if needs be.

There are $4 in my paypal... Who would I send it to?

Well, I was thinking it should be myself, since I'm the one who shall be organizing this.

As for some sort of prize for those who donate, anyone have any ideas? I'd like to place some incentive for people to put up some cash. $20 seems like a very reasonable amount. If six or seven people can donate that, this project really does stand a chance.

Money sent! Sorry it's so little, it was all I had.

If you can secure a translation the money is yours, but I'm not sure how you can do that...  As for incentive?  A high res scanned PDF would do me fine bud :)  I'd pay 25 for that!

Quote from: Rogles on January 22, 2009, 03:20:05 pm
Money sent! Sorry it's so little, it was all I had.

Thanks! Its the start of something big! But we really need to hear from the man of the hour: manuel! Please post your thoughts if you're reading this!

Well, what should I say much?  :D

At first you should know that I personally am not very interested in (Family) Basic. If I was enthusiastic about it I would probably already have started translating it and also wouldn't ask for a reward.

So in these terms translating the manual will be just regular "work" for me. Work that has to do with something I like (games).
If some of you guys would be willing to donate at least a little bit that would be a nice incentive and reward for me.
It would be cool if I could buy a Wii from it. :D I still don't own one, because I'm waiting for a price drop that's not happening.  :-\

A note on translating itself.
Because it's very cheap, I can't offer a fixed deadline and translation will probably not be very fast. I have to prioritize my regular paying work and family life. Then, when I have free time to spend, I can translate that manual (Family Basic V3, right?).
If everybody is fine with that I'm more than willing to do it.

To me, that seems totally fair.

Look for an older wii, it's great for homebrew, famicom included ;)

Oh yeah, I for one don't need a fixed deadline so long as the project doesn't go on indefinitely (i.e. it never comes to be). Otherwise, let me set this up offically:

If  you want to donate towards this, I am now collecting money through paypal. You can donate to the fund through paypal at satoshimatrix@hotmail.com. I will keep track of everyone that has donated and be sure to pass on your names to manuel and write you guys a big thank you note.

Quote from: L___E___T on January 23, 2009, 08:52:51 am
To me, that seems totally fair.

Look for an older wii, it's great for homebrew, famicom included ;)

Won't firmware upgrades (that I'll need to play newer games I assume) stop me from using homebrew?

nope it's not like psp, I'll make a thread about it on here-  it's easy safe and impressive.  New manufactured wiis have differences that don't allow it though.

That would be nice.
I'm not so much interested in emulation. If I want to play a Famicom game I buy it and play on the original hardware.
But it seems there's a lot of interesting homebrew around.

One of the nice things about an older version Wii is that with a copy of an older version of Twilight Princess [a game you should get anyway], you can put Wiiware titles on your Wii for free. Its illegal, but doing this has some benefits such as being able to download Wiiware titles not released in specific regions, as well as play custom games that haven't been put out on the VC offically or hacks. I use it to play a few Japanese only Wiiware titles such as Akumajou Dracula Chi no Rondo for the PCE-CD, but seeing as you're in Japan, you can easily get it from the superior Japanese selection  ;D

I hope L__E__T makes a thread about that.
How I find out that the Wii's the right version etc...

I have a launch Wii (got it at launch because I camped out) So I'd be happy to take some pictures. Maybe there are specific details that are different about it?

I also have a launch Wii, I really don't think there are any cosmetic differences on the outside.  The only way I could tell is if it came with wimp straps or not..

I wouldn't be for pirating content, but considering all NES and SNES roms are now public domain some emulation is not illegal.  The newer wiis just have some inner differences that stop the twilight hack working.  Yeah, I should make a thread at least for emulation and homebrew.

As far as I know though, you can't copy actual wii ware (stuff that is new made just for wii like rockman 9) but I could be wrong.  That is plain illegal copying that stuff though and quite detrimental.  Old games that we all have are a different matter.  I may have to see what JC's stance is before I make a thread about it.

Quote from: L___E___T on January 24, 2009, 02:56:37 pm
considering all NES and SNES roms are now public domain

Um...no.  The NES's hardware is now public domain (hence the rise in crappy NES clones all over the place), but the games are most certainly not public domain.

The NES hardware is patented, but patents expire after 20 years (in the US, anyway).  So, we're free to make NES clones.  Hooray.

NES games (and all video games, really) are copyrighted material.  Copyrights last for a looooooong time.

Quote from: L___E___T on January 24, 2009, 02:56:37 pm
I wouldn't be for pirating content, but considering all NES and SNES roms are now public domain some emulation is not illegal.  The newer wiis just have some inner differences that stop the twilight hack working.  Yeah, I should make a thread at least for emulation and homebrew.

As far as I know though, you can't copy actual wii ware (stuff that is new made just for wii like rockman 9) but I could be wrong.  That is plain illegal copying that stuff though and quite detrimental.  Old games that we all have are a different matter.  I may have to see what JC's stance is before I make a thread about it.

Wii Ware game are just .wad files. With the .wad installer you can pirate Wii Ware games.

Ok so I've obviously got this mixed up but in most cases it's ok to make a copy rom if you have the actual game as a physical copy.  Of course, hacks and unlicensed games are quite different, so that may be ok.

Sorry for the confusion, I did in fact mean the hardware like you mentioned Joe.

My friend has a D2C Wii (the latest model) and we were successfully able to mod it to play backups, and run the Twilight Hack to install WAD files like the Homebrew Channel :)

i would donate, if i had a family basic.  :P

There are pirated versions of the Family BASIC system that run Family BASIC just the same as 133MHz can testify to

But, also according to 133mhz, they lack a save ability.  If you can't save your programs, it's not really worth it.

*sigh*

Can you post the total amount collected?  Even though I'm opposed to the translation, I know I would end up using it after it's done and released.  Then I'd feel guilty.  If you get close to the needed amount, I'll contribute.

Wait, since Manuel is doing the translation, then why does Satoshi get the money?  Shouldn't it just go straight to Manuel?

I think he collects all, then adds his part and sends it all at once.

Paypal gets twice the fees this way, though.  :-\
(their fees are quite high I realized the last day...)

Very good point.  No sense wasting money with avoidable transaction fees.

Quote from: manuel on January 25, 2009, 09:19:45 pm
I think he collects all, then adds his part and sends it all at once.

Paypal gets twice the fees this way, though.  :-\
(their fees are quite high I realized the last day...)

This is correct. I'm collecting to then contribute my sum (which I'm really hoping will be half or less). As for paypal fees, wouldn't it just amount to a few dollars? I'll be happy to make up for that.

Now that I know people are interested, I think I should probably make another thread just for donation purposes to give out all the information as it pertains.

Fees are 3.9% of the amount + 0.3$

I've never had paypal fees before if I send as a gift, but I guess that's a little risky in this case.

The receiver has to pay the fees.

Sending money is always free for the sender.

Which defies all logic, by the way. ???

"Hey, here's some money from a friend of yours... wait let's take some first!!!!!"

It's just a service charge.  Credit Card companies do it, too.  Whenever you buy something with a CC, part of the sale goes to the CC company.  The store pays the service charge, not you. 

But doesn't this not happen if you withdraw an amount over $150?

It's not about withdrawals, the fees are for receiving funds from another account.

Bump!

I scanned the manual of Family Basic V3. I didn't crop the images, you get them straight from the scanner in 1 handy zip file.


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CPNQ36F1 (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CPNQ36F1)

wow - thanks Manuel!!

Everybody interested downloaded it already?

Get it while it's hot.  ;)

Wow - thanks manuel! This looks great! Its totally different from the V2 manual.

The v2 book has much better tutorial info in it.  The v3 book won't teach you how to use BASIC.  It assumes you already know how most of the stuff works and spends the majority of its time explaining (in what looks like higher level) how the example games work. 

In fact, the syntax reference in the back only covers the v3 exclusive commands.  None of the standard commands are listed.  This manual is supplementary to the v2 manual.

The RENUM command looks awfully nifty, though.  Wish v2 had that :P

Can someone post scans of the original FB manual and V2 manual?

There's only a v2 manual and a v3 manual.

Ok, that makes it easier.  :)

Please somebody scan that V2 manual.

I might be able to get a friend of mine to lend me his scanner. What format should it be in? jpegs or pdf?

What works is ok.

PDF == easier readability

hello everybody
i received last week the famly basic v2 manual and i'm going to scan it. that will help you to have an idea of how that works , unfortunatly i can't speak japanese so, after the scan , this manual need to be translated.   
tomorrow i will begin by uploading the cover and the 10 first pages 

Great! The manual is totally different from the V3 one, so there might need to be two different translations that need doing...I guess once its scanned, Manuel can hopefully take a look at it and compare the two together.

I hope Florent comes back and really uploads the scans.

BTW, welcome to the boards, Florent.  :)

hello here's the first part (from the cover to page 18)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=P3SX4SC7

the next pages are comming soon.

the first pages (in color) have been incorectly scanned (you can't see the top of the page) when i'll upload the second part i'll upload a better scan of color pages.

I'll wait for the better scans then. Thanks for the efforts.

here's the second part of the scan (from the cover to page 40 and better scan of the color pages)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I10LWKCT

the next pages are comming soon

Good scans.
It really is totally different.

excuse me but i was very busy and i forget to do the next scans (because now i'm getting very very busy ) but i promise that i'll send new scan tomorrow  or if not next week