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Family BASIC Keyboard |
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Family BASIC Keyboard |
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| Here we have the Famicom
keyboard, which was only released in Japan, to be used with the Family
BASIC programming carts (2 are known to exist, v1 and v3). This device
was going to be released with the US NES, along with a version of
BASIC. However, the folks at Nintendo of Japan didn't think American
kids would want to program in BASIC, and it also made the NES look too
much like a computer. If anything, Nintendo wanted to differentiate the
NES from the home computers which were on the market at the time.
Therefore, US gamers never got the chance to get this neat peripheral.
Not much is known in the English world about this device, and
documentation is almost nonexistent. More info is requested here,
especially concerning tech info, and other games which may make use of
this. Any info, please email! If you look at the output pictures linked above, you will notice they are your standard min-phono plugs. I believe these attached to the FC cassette unit, so you could save your projects onto tape and then open them again later. The output probably ran to the mic jack on the cassette unit, and the input probably ran from the headphone jack. Also note the connector picture linked above. The FC keyboard attached to the FC's expansion port on the front of the FC. One of our contributors wrote me and said they may be willing to do an English translation of the manual. If they do, of course I will post it here. Thanks to "22" for the manual, outputs, close-up, set, connector and cartridge scans! |
