

SmileBASIC for Nintendo 3DS - niconii
http://smilebasic.com/en/

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Maxious
3DS homebrew coming soon...
[https://twitter.com/smealum/status/523002877514493952](https://twitter.com/smealum/status/523002877514493952)

There's already a "C library for writing user mode arm11 code for the 3DS
(CTR)"
[https://github.com/smealum/ctrulib](https://github.com/smealum/ctrulib)

~~~
Danieru
Okay that's it, off to Akihabara I go.

Back... Turns out the New 3DS does not come with a charger... I feel like I'm
10 again and I've ran out of AA batteries for my Gameboy Color

~~~
ANTSANTS
IIRC for some reason it's typical in Japan to not include chargers with
handhelds or even sometimes AC adapters with consoles. For people in the rest
of the world, the New 3DS will probably include an adapter.

~~~
kgabis
3DS XL is sold without AC adapter in Europe.

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niconii
Incidentally, for those who are interested, this is actually a newer version
of Petit Computer for the DSi, which is also on the 3DS eShop.

~~~
Afal
dangit! I just bought petit computer last weekend. From the screenshots though
this looks like the same interface as Petit Computer. Is this a new
application separate to Petit or will this be an update for Petit I wonder...

~~~
niconii
Separate, unfortunately for your wallet... This one's a proper 3DS
application, whereas Petit Computer is a DSi application that was carried over
to the 3DS eShop.

That being said, I don't think the new version will run programs made in Petit
Computer as is without a fair bit of tweaking, so you do have the benefit of
being able to try out the Petit Computer programs already made. It's not a
complete waste!

~~~
Afal
I guess I have something to play around with the smilebasic syntax. I can't
imagine that the language used will change dramatically to the new version..

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webkike
This looks incredible, hopefully we'll be able to upload scripts we write on
desktops. But more likely they'll have some stupidly small limit and only
inputable from the console. It'll probably be measured in Nintendo "blocks",
which they decided to use over literally anything else.

edit: nope, I was completely wrong. This looks awesome. Finally, the nintendo
3DS is easily user programmable.

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Afal
This looks like an iteration on PetitComputer, and there are a bunch of stuff
on Petit on
[http://petitcomputer.wikia.com/wiki/Petit_Computer_Wiki](http://petitcomputer.wikia.com/wiki/Petit_Computer_Wiki)

~~~
brianobush
States on the sample page: All Screenshots and videos in this page were
captured from the Japanese Version of SmileBASIC (PetitCom 3)

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muyuu
Just in case someone else was trying to figure out, the New Nintendo 3DS
sports 256MiB of RAM. Wikipedia in English, Japanese, Spanish, Catalan, etc
doesn't tell for some reason (in Chinese it does say though).

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sagischwarz
This looks great! Hopefully "other countries" will include the EU. I wonder if
it will be possible to side load code written on the PC. Does "Multiple
Programs: 4 slots are available and they are isolated from the others to store
and execute" really mean that you can only save four different projects (code
files) on the system? Also, does anyone have an idea why arrays can only have
four dimensions? Restricting just the overall elements or the maximum size in
memory would seem more intuitive to me.

~~~
niconii
It sounds like you can upload programs to the Internet, so although it seems
you can only have four stored in the 3DS at a time, I think it's just a matter
of swapping them out.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I have the DSi version (Petit Computer) on my 3DS just now, you can have way
more than four files. I'm not sure there's even a limit, beyond the amount of
internal memory the DSi had. I don't see why there'd be a four-file limit
added... many Petit Computer programs were made of up to a dozen files
(sometimes more, though rarely).

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tdicola
Wow this looks really cool, will it be in the US eShop? I would have loved
something like this when I was a teenager playing with QBASIC back in the day.

~~~
niconii
At the bottom, the site says "SmileBASIC will be available in Japan and other
countries in respective languages.", which suggests to me that this will be
available in both the US and Europe. At the very least, its predecessor, Petit
Computer, is currently available on the US eShop.

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Yuioup
Cool! I am wondering if this will help teach programming to the next
generation.

I learned how to program using BASIC on the Amstrad CPC but back then it was
the only computer in the house. Nowadays there are so many programming
environments to choose from.

So where to start if you want to teach kids nowadays how to program? Will
SmileBASIC be a good start?

~~~
emsy
Unity, Android, XCode. This is already happening. You can take games and start
to learn programming top down instead of bottom up. Take a ready made game,
make modifications and see what's happening (similar to the turtle exercises
where you programatically draw a picture using a predefined API and later
learn how to implement the actual drawing API). Apple is currently undergoing
an effort to teach programming using Swift and the Swift REPL
([http://www.apple.com/swift/](http://www.apple.com/swift/)) I think it's much
easier to get the current generation interested in programming using games and
instant gratification (according to some teachers I talked to, there seems to
be a trend for pupils not engaging in challenges, see also
[http://marshnaylor.kinja.com/my-stepson-plays-video-games-
on...](http://marshnaylor.kinja.com/my-stepson-plays-video-games-on-
easy-1567247724))

When I started learning programming it was really hard to accquire information
and no one knew how to program so I couldn't get a mentor. Nowadays it's much
easier to get all you need to get started learning programming. Which
absolutely good, but there is a life lesson in this difficulty to accquire
information that the current generation will probably never learn.

I think it will be really hard to engage kids into learning programming bottom
up, but YMMV.

~~~
dragonbonheur
It takes less than a week to be productive in any modern dialect of BASIC. How
long for Unity/XCode/Swift/Android?

~~~
emsy
It's not about being productive. It's about engaging a younger generation into
programming.

~~~
dragonbonheur
How do you get children engaged into programming if you deny them the chance
of finishing their projects fast? Are you actually claiming that the
experience that modern versions of BASIC provide cannot be applied to other
languages?

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autechr3
Wow cool! This made me so happy that I already own a 3DS. If you are on the
fence about it, but you played gameboy/nintendo for the past 20 years, go
ahead and get a 3DS. This plus there are at least 7 or 8 games that are really
fun.

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pervycreeper
This is a great idea. I wonder how finished programs are distributed. I have
wanted to make something similar for ios for some time.

I imagine the predecessor to this must have been fairly successful in Japan to
merit a sequel

~~~
Afal
Petit Computer has a function that allows you to share via QR code. Since the
screenshots show that this is based on Petit, I'd assume that you have that in
this as well.

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kgabis
I can't imagine writing 1.5k lines of code using stylus. Besides, why BASIC?
Lua seems like a better fit. Codea uses lua and is amazing, but then again -
writing code on touchscreens is always painful.

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math0ne
I love the aesthetics of this program, I'd be tempted to buy a 3ds just so I
can see this in person!

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pjmlp
This is great! Maybe I will finally get one.

