why did we blow on the cartridges of our NES? and did it really work?

[BlahBlahYouToo]

i blew on the cartridge, i blew inside the console.
i was like 6 years old at the time. don't know where i "learned" to do it.
my thinking was it got dusty and blowing it will clear it out.

 

[brblx]

i was too young to know why it worked, but it worked.

i assumed it was just getting dust off of the contacts.

 

[smackababy]

My NES stopped playing games unless I had my Game Genie inserted. And I assumed blowing cleared the dust from the contacts.

 

[Yreka]

The slobber particles landing on the contacts probably helped as well

 

[iamwiz82]

What about sliding the cart back and forth in the system? NES was good for teachin those of us from that generation how to perserve through problems .

 

[viivo]

When I was 8 I told one of my friends that by pouring water on my NES I was able to make Mario jump completely over the flags at the end of the levels, which then opened up bonus levels. A couple days later he seemed really surprised it didn't work, but didn't seem at all phased that I probably caused him to ruin his NES.

 

[BassBomb]

When I was 8 I told one of my friends that by pouring water on my NES I was able to make Mario jump completely over the flags at the end of the levels, which then opened up bonus levels. A couple days later he seemed really surprised it didn't work, but didn't seem at all phased that I probably caused him to ruin his NES.

Wow

 

[Kev]

I never blew on it. I use to shift it back and forth while it was in the console.

I knew a kid that use to spit on the games...

 

[kalrith]

I heard that it was to remove dust from the contacts, and I also heard that it was the added moisture to the contacts. Regardless of what it did, it really seemed to work. I was also 6 when we got our Nintendo, so my memory's a bit unreliable.

 

[mugs]

Blowing didn't do any good, but it did require you to take the cartridge out and put it back in, and that gave you a chance of having the cartridge seated properly the second time.

 

[purbeast0]

man we used to have so many rituals on how to get a game to work...

i remember we would press it down, up, down up, like 5x and that would make it work 90% of the time.

or push it down and move it very gently side to side a few times.

lol those were the days, when not a worry in the world

 

[Rage187]

the way I learned was just to put the cart in so that the front of the cart scratched the console lip as it went down. It worked 100% of the time.

 

[mc866]

the way I learned was just to put the cart in so that the front of the cart scratched the console lip as it went down. It worked 100% of the time.

This! We did blow in our cartridges also which worked at times but the lip trick above worked most every time. I still use this trick when I dust off the old NES.

 

[SnipeMasterJ13]

the way I learned was just to put the cart in so that the front of the cart scratched the console lip as it went down. It worked 100% of the time.

This was the only thing that worked for me, too. I had a friend that had special "cleaning solution" with a specially made swab with a felt pad on it for cleaning the contacts. Those were the days...getting owned by Battletoads.

 

[Yreka]

the way I learned was just to put the cart in so that the front of the cart scratched the console lip as it went down. It worked 100% of the time.

Yep, we did that one too..

 

[zerocool84]

We sacrificed kittens to get the games to work. Never failed us.

 

[Adrenaline]

the way I learned was just to put the cart in so that the front of the cart scratched the console lip as it went down. It worked 100% of the time.

This worked for me. I remember taking a crap game, pouring rubbing alcohol all over the contact, lighting it on fire and then pouring water on it and it still worked. Not to mention throwing the cartridge across the room as well.

Those cartridges could take a lot.

 

[mmntech]

I used to do this with my Genesis and Gameboy carts. That was before I knew that did more harm than good, but I never ruined any of my games.

 

[BassBomb]

closet homosexuality?

 

[lokiju]

Usually just doing the wedge method of one game on top of the game that was already in there did the trick for me but when it was being extra finicky I'd trying blowing it out thinking it'd get some dust out of there.

I had a friend that swore if you rubbed the oil from your nose and then rubbed that onto the the connectors of the game itself, that that worked better than anything...

 

[cyphilis]

wow that brings back some memories. Its funny, all of us as kids blew into the games, and all knew the tricks of how to make the games work WITHOUT THE INTERNET!! How the hell did we figure this stuff out, because I sure don't remember anyone telling me to blow out my cartridges. I just tried it once,. and worked.

 

[sygyzy]

I used to take a penny and insert it into my tshirt and then spit or lick the shirt. Then I'd rub the shirt, with the penny behind it, back and forth on both sides of the contacts. I just made it up one day and it seemed to work better than just blowing.

 

[blurredvision]

The wikipedia article explains a bit on what the problem actually was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System#Hardware_design_flaws

 

[Cuda1447]

This worked for me. I remember taking a crap game, pouring rubbing alcohol all over the contact, lighting it on fire and then pouring water on it and it still worked. Not to mention throwing the cartridge across the room as well.

Those cartridges could take a lot.

I never shit on my games like you, but I did do the previous suggestion. Put it so just the edge of the cartridge was sticking out and then violently jam it into the NES. It seemed to always work. If it didnt, I had a nasty habit of bashing the NES on the top. That worked sometimes too.

 

[Malak]

wow that brings back some memories. Its funny, all of us as kids blew into the games, and all knew the tricks of how to make the games work WITHOUT THE INTERNET!! How the hell did we figure this stuff out, because I sure don't remember anyone telling me to blow out my cartridges. I just tried it once,. and worked.

That's a good point. I don't recall who told me the tricks either.