Family BASIC for the NES is this weird little piece of gaming history—basically Nintendo’s attempt to turn your console into a programming tool. You boot it up, and suddenly you’re staring at a bright blue screen with a blinking cursor, like some stripped-down version of BASIC from the '80s (because it is).

At first, it feels clunky—typing in commands with a controller is about as fun as you’d imagine—but there’s something charming about piecing together simple programs that actually run. You can make little pixel art drawings, basic games, or even music if you’re patient. It’s more of a curiosity than something you’d actually use today, but if you’ve ever wondered what coding on an NES looked like, this is it.

Fair warning: unless you read Japanese or have a guide handy, you’re gonna be guessing at a lot of the commands.