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Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: Caleb on 18 Feb 2010, 13:14

Title: How Durable are NES games?
Post by: Caleb on 18 Feb 2010, 13:14

Honestly the only thing that kills them is being in a house where people smoke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCLOxK6FpfA&feature=player_embedded

Title: Re: How tough are NES games?
Post by: Emaline on 18 Feb 2010, 13:19

And cat pee.

Title: Re: How tough are NES games?
Post by: LeeC on 18 Feb 2010, 13:24

intriguing.

Title: Re: How tough are NES games?
Post by: jhocking on 18 Feb 2010, 13:25

That is not at all what I expected. From the title I assumed this would be a rant about how many frikkin times you die on the third screen of Metal Gear.

Title: Re: How tough are NES games?
Post by: Alex C on 18 Feb 2010, 13:30

Yeah, I mean, I remember a youtube review series talking about how they suspect that the later levels in Ghosts and Goblins do not actually exist. I mean, why should the developers bother? You're not getting past the second one anyway.

Title: Re: How Durable are NES games?
Post by: Caleb on 18 Feb 2010, 14:58

I have gotten some really beat up NES carts and they have ALWAYS worked.

Title: Re: How Durable are NES games?
Post by: Emaline on 18 Feb 2010, 15:19

I worked at a game store where we took in old nes cartridges. A lot of times they were so god awfully disgustingly dirty that they didn't work. Animals and video games don't mix. If I can air-duster a whole freaking labrador retriever out of you console, something is dreadfully wrong.

Title: Re: How Durable are NES games?
Post by: Caleb on 18 Feb 2010, 15:22

hahaha.  That is horrible.  Pet STUFF.

All cartridge based games get corrosion on their contacts but some contract clearer or something like Windex will clean that out really quickly.  I have cleaned some games that looked like they were kept in a bucket of used motor oil.

Title: Re: How Durable are NES games?
Post by: Chesire Cat on 21 Feb 2010, 18:35

You cant really save a NES whose contacts have bent from years of use though.

Also, smoker's homes? Was there some previous conversation about smoke killing NES games that I missed?

Title: Re: How Durable are NES games?
Post by: Emaline on 21 Feb 2010, 20:30

It just turns them colors.

Title: Re: How Durable are NES games?
Post by: Caleb on 22 Feb 2010, 07:00

No a video game console or cartridge that is in a smokers home will not work as well.

You get all kinds of corrosion and gunk build up.  And it smells bad.

At least that has been my experience with used stuff.

Title: Re: How Durable are NES games?
Post by: bicostp on 23 Feb 2010, 20:45

I generally use a few different steps to clean a cartridge, starting from the least aggressive to the most:

- Rubbing alcohol
- Pencil eraser
- gasoline/WD-40/carburetor cleaner/brake cleaner (whichever's handy)
- fine sandpaper

Quote from: Chesire Cat on 21 Feb 2010, 18:35

You cant really save a NES whose contacts have bent from years of use though.

Of course you can!. Bend the pins back into place, get a replacement cartridge connector (I'm pretty sure they still manufacture new ones), or you can build a new connector using two really old floppy cables if you're feeling ambitious. Replacing the cartridge connector itself is the easiest method. It's just a C-shaped piece of plastic, and the motherboard connector is basically another cartridge connector. Take the motherboard out, slip the old connector off, slip the new one on, reassemble.

Besides, most of the failures in the NES are because of the lockout chip, the problem isn't always the cartridge connector. If you disable it (simply cut one leg on the IC off the motherboard and short it to ground), your NES will be several times more reliable. "The blinkies" are caused by the lockout chip resetting the console because it can't talk to its counterpart in the cartridge properly.