FALSE interpreter/editor (WIP)

For a long time I've wanted to write something for NES that lets you code something for the NES, all the way back to my first "Hello World!" program letting you input a small machine language routine in hex and run it. This is an implementation of FALSE because its "1 character equals 1 command" style fits well with having to type using an on-screen keyboard, and I've already written interpreters for it before. It's a bit different from the original FALSE and has extensions which are documented in the readme.


"Sprite2" in the samples list, showing the editor and language.

I'm intending to fit this on the multicart along with the sound effects editor and my Conway's Life implementation in 16kb but currently there's some bugs that prevent the "Primes" sample program from working that I can't figure out that look like memory corruption, and sometimes the PPU has issues too. I also want to put in a character map and a better, more documented way to step through the program.

Could it have option to support input from keyboard? A few of these symbols aren't in the Famicom keyboard but it can be work-around by using other keys, since it looks like not all of the letters of the alphabet are listed in the screenshot. Of course, it is good to work well without the keyboard, too, because of reason you describe, but still would be faster typing with a keyboard if it would be workable.

If you bribe us with a Famicom (or PowerPak-compatible famiclone) and a keyboard, I'll have him do it.

O, so that's what that is for. It doesn't mention that one specifically on the page, but OK. I am unable to do such thing at the moment; I don't even have any hardware to test it myself (I don't even have any NES/Famicom hardware at all).

It can be tested on emulator (although, of course, this is not perfect). All of my own programs I have only tested myself on emulator (although, I have paid attention to instructions and hardware design to hope that it would still work on a hardware, doing such thing as waiting for PPU, initializing RAM if necessary (instead of assuming zero), bus conflicts, and so on).

Anyways, what I posted is just a suggestion, and I am not intending to force anyone to do anything like that. This is a low priority if source-codes are available, though, since others can easily add it (and I will add it myself if I ever intend to, but of course I cannot test it either except on emulator).

Yeah, I could add keyboard support for Famicom, and ENIO lets you use a keyboard too (and I could write a Lua thing for FCEUX to emulate it, but without a real one I won't know it actually works). I mostly just wanted to see if anyone had any interest in the project before continuing to add features and fix things.