The first edition of the Family BASIC application cartridge is bundled with a computer style keyboard and instructional textbook, and requires a cassette tape recorder to save user-generated BASIC programs. Programs can be saved using any cassette tape drive, such as the Famicom Data Recorder. Family BASIC was not designed to be compatible with floppy disk storage on the Famicom Disk System and the Disk System's RAM adapter requires the use of the Famicom's cartridge slot, which prevents using the slot for the Family BASIC cartridge. Family BASIC includes a dialect of the BASIC programming language enhanced for game development. Its Microsoft BASIC-derived command set is extended with support for sprites, animation, backgrounds, musical sequences, and gamepads. Several visual components seen in Nintendo games, such as backgrounds and characters from Mario and Donkey Kong series games, are made available as Family BASIC development componentry, or appear in premade Family BASIC games.
Development
Family BASIC was released in Japan by Nintendo for the Family Computer on June 21, 1984 in Japan. It was part of a collaboration between Nintendo, Sharp Corporation and Hudson Soft, and was created to attract computer users over to their new system. Koji Kondo wrote a section in the instruction manual for programming Japanese popular music in the game, being his second project for Nintendo. Prior to this, Kondo had become interested in producing music through computers by programming sound effects in BASIC on his home computer. Two revisions of Family BASIC were produced — the first, "v.2.1", was released shortly after production of the game begun, and the second, "v.3.0", was released in early 1985. v.3.0 featured expanded memory and several minigames built-in to the programming cartridge, indicated by a red cartridge shell.
Reception and legacy
Family BASIC was commercially successful, selling over 400,000 units by the end of the 1980s. In a 2011 retrospective review, Retro Gamer thought it was a "some-what useless" peripheral for the Famicom due to its high price point and lack of compatibility with the Famicom Disk System, although they found it to be an interesting collection piece for its rarity and overall concept. Cho Ren Sha 68K designer Koichi Yoshida used Family BASIC to create a shoot 'em up title called Zacner II. Satoshi Tajiri, creator of Pokémon, had also initially used Family BASIC as a gateway to build his understanding of the internal operation of the Famicom. This inspired him to create his own handmade Famicom game development hardware, and make Game Freak's debut game Quinty, later released as Mendel Palace.
