Programming the NES in BASIC?
In 2004, Bob Rost taught a class about programming NES games at Carnegie Melon University. He built a compiler that enables a person to program NES games in BASIC. He calls the framework nBASIC, and it is available on this page. This makes programming so much easier!
Anuj and Jesse have been using nBASIC to start programming Ghanaian content on the $12 computer. I told Bob about their work, and he replied to me saying:
Games from Bob's class
I’m glad that my course materials have been helpful for you, and I hope the nbasic compiler and other tools prove to be beneficial as well (aside from their occasional bugs). Don’t hesitate to email again if you have any specific questions or design problems that you think I could help to answer.
As a side note, based your previous email, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the efficiency of nbasic’s output in most cases, and the complexity of the games it will allow you to create in any given time frame. You are of course welcome to use, abuse, change, and distribute the source code in any way you like.
Best of luck to you and your team.
-Bob
That is incredible! Do you think this community could help improve the efficacy of nBASIC? If we could program games using such an accessible language, this would substantially reduce the time, effort, and cash required to write a game in assembly code. If we want to promote local game production, there needs to be an easier way to program.
Thanks, Bob!