Family BASIC

Summary

To appeal to computer users, Nintendo developed the Family Basic Keyboard with Hudson Soft and Sharp Corporation. The keyboard and supplied software cartridge provide HuBASIC, a version of BASIC that can be used to create backgrounds, maps and routes for Famicom games. An optional cassette-based Data Recorder saves programs as on a home computer. The keyboard is incompatible with the Disk System released two years later, because both occupy the cartridge slot. Family BASIC V3 appeared just under a year later, with more memory and built-in games written in HuBASIC.