
Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work? - Grovara123
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/142550
======
aristus
As a wee lad in the last millennium I was an authorized Nintendo repairman.

Blowing on the cart sometimes worked, if there was errant dust or fluff in the
way. But in the long run the salty moist air would cause a corrosive layer of
gunk on the contacts. Normal procedure was to open each cart and clean them
with a good eraser then an alcohol wash.

The bigger problem was bad design in the original NES. The cart plugged into a
component that looked like a harmonica and then pressed downwards, levering
against a pretty heavy spring. This perpendicular stress caused the contacts
to break, first causing contact flakiness, then failure. The SuperNES and
GameBoy fixed this problem with a vertical insertion that carried over into
the N64 and others.

~~~
mikeash
The force was actually borne by the contacts? Man. You'd think they would have
put the contacts on something more flexible, and transmit the force with the
outer covering.

~~~
aristus
Yep. I think the idea was to make it behave like the toploading VCRs which
were around at the time: insert then press down. Very often customers would
refer to the cartridges as "Nintendo tapes".

~~~
mikeash
Sure, the American NES was deliberately designed that way in order to not look
so much like a video game device, because everybody was paranoid due to the
video game crash having happened recently.

I'm really asking a mechanical question. Basically, if you're going to build
an insert-and-press-down device, it would make sense to have a mechanical
system to handle all of that _separately_ from the electrical contacts.
Basically, you'd have the cartridge slide into some kind of device which
captures it and has the springs and latches to make the system work as
desired. Within that device, you'd also have the electrical contacts with the
cartridge, but set up so that the fragile electrical contacts don't actually
transmit the spring's force, which goes through the outer frame instead. You
made it sound like the force got transmitted directly through the electrical
contacts without any separate spring-loaded device, which seems like a pretty
obvious failure point.

------
TimGebhardt
Or if you're really brave you could just replace the 72-pin reader:

[http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-NES-Cartridge-Slot-
Replacemen...](http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-NES-Cartridge-Slot-
Replacement/dp/B004FO6PZG)

<https://nuxx.net/wiki/NES_72-Pin_Edge_Connector_Replacement>

I did it on mine in college -- and then I did it for my suite-mate after he
noticed that I never had any problems with my NES -- and then I did it for
everyone on my floor who had an NES... :) Works like brand new.

~~~
pixelbath
Alternatively, if you're really, really brave, you could do what I did:
disassemble the NES down to the header, and use a small screwdriver to bend
the pins slightly back into position.

However, it is easy to bend them _too_ far, and increase the insertion force
required to actually load the game. Or worse, snap off one of the contacts.

I did this with an NES that I purchased for $5 off eBay (over 10 years ago),
and have had no problems since. I believe this was a year or two before the
72-pin replacement was widely available.

~~~
emillon
That's not really being brave ; I mean, it's not dangerous. The NES is very
serviceable.

~~~
pixelbath
I guess I forgot to mention that you have to play Mumblety-peg after bending
each pin.

------
motoford
I was an kid pre-NES, and got an old system at a yard sale for my kids. I
quickly learned that I could reseat it 20 times, clean it with alcohol, pencil
eraser, whatever sane tactic, none of them worked as often as blowing into the
cartridge.

I had never heard of blowing into the cartridge before. I didn't get the
technique from other kids, and I had never had to do it with Atari,
Intellivision, C64, or any other system. I learned it out of desperation, and
it worked. I don't care what scientific evidence or common sense points to the
contrary, it worked.

~~~
dromidas
Completely agree. I was the kinda kid that built his own crystal radio and
endless science kits like that.

I used alcohol QTip and blowing, both self-discovered methods. And both
equally effective, but solved different problems.

------
moocow01
I obviously havent matured very much because the 10 year old in me wants to
say "nah-ah blowing works every time"

Perhaps I was kidding myself all those years but I swear the games would work
after blowing on them. Oh well not the first time Ive found a fundamental of
life was all a lie (and yes the trick to getting Nintendo games to work was a
fundamental life skill back then)

~~~
shawnc
I actually think it wasn't blowing on them that did it, but the act of blowing
on them and then inserting the cartridge more deliberately the next time. And
each time after that, being more deliberate. It was the act of putting it in
'just right' that did it, not blowing at all.

------
portman
What always worked for me was inserting a 3x2 Lego piece, oriented vertically,
between the cartridge and the top of the NES container. This pushed down the
game by about 3-4mm. This trick was common knowledge in the neighborhood where
I lived during the mid 80s.

~~~
dpcan
Our trick was that once the cartridge was pushed down, you could slide it left
and right a tiny bit into place until the pins lined up, then it would work.

------
ChuckMcM
So I used to pull out Unibus cards from the PDP-11 and rub the contacts with a
pencil eraser to get the corrosion off them. HP machines of course had
literally gold plated connectors which did not corrode pretty much ever.

------
CWilliams1013
The trick that always worked for me was to insert the cartridge and then pull
it out just enough to where the near edge of the cartridge would just barely
scrape against the console as it was pushed down. This was far more effective
than blowing on the cartridge.

~~~
willstepp
I did that too! Man, this article is taking me back...

~~~
pserwylo
Taking you back?

My house mate and I are currently moving through our Killer Instinct phase on
SNES, and I just lent my NES to my 18 year old sister and her boyfriend who
borrow it regularly.

I'm taking this article very seriously, as I am from the family of people who
blew in the cartridges (and the console) up until I read this :)

~~~
icebraining
Is it really worth it the risks to play on the real thing? I don't have my NES
anymore (my parents convinced me to give it away when I got an N64), but I
think that I'd still use an emulator and boot it only once every few months
rather than risking breaking it. And using It Might Be NES (emulator for the
PS1/One/2) on a CRT TV is almost the same anyway ;)

Now, I realize there's no point in having something without using it, but my
point is if parsimony isn't a better policy.

------
incision
It was a revelation when I decided to try actually cleaning the contacts on a
NES. The results of a little alcohol and a brush made of folded notebook paper
earned me the reputation of a magician in my circle of friends.

------
dllthomas
The "Placebo Effect" isn't "something tricking you into thinking it works" -
it's the fact that _having_ a belief that something works produces better
outcomes. I doubt that the mental state of the child has any detectable or
consistent effect on the function of the console.

~~~
vq
He probably meant to write "Superstition".

------
borlak
This is the second report I've read that says that it doesn't help. But
there's something these reports are missing, because the simple fact is that
it DID work. I've personally proven the hypothesis a hundred times in my
childhood: (re)insert cartridge X times -- doesn't work -- blow -- works. It
was extremely rare that blowing did nothing in my experience, and the solution
in those cases? blow harder.

------
s_henry_paulson
After reading the sidebar about the kid who licked his cartridges, I
completely forgot about the original article.

~~~
eckyptang
That used to work with ISA cards in the late 80s for me :)

It made the corrosion worse in the long run but it worked good enough for a
bit.

A friend of mine used spit as solder flux as well once. Worked quite well.

------
krisneuharth
I always found that if blowing no longer worked, that I could plug it into the
Game Genie loader and it would usually work. I suspect because the fit into
the Genie was much tighter and the pins were less worn or corroded.

~~~
amalcon
Definitely. Around my old neighborhood, Game Genie was a highly prized
accessory if only for that reason. Cheating was all well and good, but having
your Nintendo actually work? That was the real advantage!

------
pmahoney
The Game Genie is a mini cartridge that attaches to a game cart (to apply
cheats/mods through a code-entry screen). This combo is then inserted into the
NES, Game Genie-first. The combo is too long to be pushed down, and the NES
door remains open while playing.

I never understood why you don't need to push "down" the Game Genie; a bare
cart would never function unless pushed down...

Nevertheless, every game I had that would not work in the NES would work just
fine with the Game Genie attached (and you can always choose to enter zero
cheat codes). The Game Genie seemed to make everything a bit tighter. When
inserted into the NES, there isn't much wiggle room, if I recall.

edit: Wikipedia says, "Therefore, the Game Genie was designed in such a way
that it did not need to be depressed in order to start the game. This design
put even more stress on the ZIF socket than standard game insertion, bending
pins and eventually causing units to be unplayable without the Game Genie
present." <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Genie>

~~~
meatpopsicle
you didn't need to push down on the game genie, because the "push down" was to
enable the CIC lockout chip. Galoob spent a considerable amount of time (and
legal fees) bypassing the CIC chip. this allowed all games to run without
problems on most NES systems.

------
dorkrawk
The trick is to filter the cartridge opening with your shirt THEN blow into
it.

~~~
daeken
I did that as well, but I don't think that actually makes anything better.
Your breath is very moist and when you blow through your shirt, you're still
getting essentially all of it.

------
sliverstorm
I'm surprised seeing those photos of the game boards outside their cartridges.
Not only are they _much_ smaller than the cartridge, but they are really just
some memory and the lock-out chip!

~~~
ANTSANTS
The article didn't include any pictures of Famicom carts, but basically,
they're about half as tall as NES cartridges. I haven't popped open any NES
games, but I'd have to guess most, if not all NES games just used a Famicom
sized board to simplify manufacturing. Here's a comparison shot of the NES and
Famicom versions of Super Mario Bros. 3:

[http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-
content/images/smb3j_labe...](http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-
content/images/smb3j_label/nesfam_2_large.jpg)

While most later systems featured mostly standardized cartridge designs,
Famicom carts wildly vary in color and design from publisher to publisher.
They're quite pleasing to look at:

[http://famicomblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/aesthetics-of-
famico...](http://famicomblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/aesthetics-of-famicom-
cart.html)

Another piece of trivia: The Famicom had a 60 pin cartridge port, while the
NES had a 72 pin cartridge port (iirc they removed a few pins, relocated a few
from the Famicom's bottom port, and added pins for the lockout chips). A few
early games literally consisted of a Famicom game board plugged into an
internal 60-to-72 pin adapter. So, for a while, the cheapest way to get a
Famicom converter was to rip apart a cheap game like Gyromite and hope it was
part of a certain run. You can see the converter clearly here:

[http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-
content/gyro/gyro7_big.jp...](http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-
content/gyro/gyro7_big.jpg)

As for technical details, you're mostly on the dot, but most later games also
featured mapper circuitry to allow the NES to address more memory. Some boards
used simple 7400 series, while others used customs ICs, some of which were
fairly expensive, to expand the system's capabilities. Simpler ones just
allowed for more complex bank switching schemes, while the most expensive ones
featured things like interrupt generators and additional sound generating
hardware. The sky is the limit for what you can stuff in a game cartridge, so
the NES and SNES were designed to be very expandable through their cartridge
ports. That's part of what makes cartridge-based games special to me; they're
not just data on a disc, they're full-fledged hardware extensions of their
host console.

------
samspot
I used to blow in them, but I found that the double cartridge technique
(putting two in at a time causing the pins to press harder) worked a lot
better. Sometimes if things were really bad a 'snap-in' technique would work.
To perform this technique you insert the cartridge partially and then apply
downward pressure causing the cartridge to forcefully jump into the slot. This
was likely very bad for the system :)

~~~
pixelbath
Didn't the front-loading NES have a metal bar across the top of the loading
mechanism? How were you able to fit a second game past that?

~~~
samspot
It goes on top of the bar :). This means the game you are playing is depressed
much lower than usual.

------
RyanMcGreal
I don't think I ever blew into my NES cartridges, but I remember taking them
out, giving them a gentle shake with the connector end pointing down, and
putting them back in. I expect doing this was as much a placebo as blowing
(it's not as if there were chip crumbs stuck in there), but it made me feel
like I was doing something productive. :/

------
chsonnu
I had a religious friend that would force us all to hold hands and say a
prayer. It worked half the time too.

------
systematical
Is it possible the moisture caused by blowing into the cartridge allowed for
better electric conductivity?

------
neovive
We all thought it worked :) All of my friends with NES growing up encountered
the same problems overtime. It was clearly a design problem as described in
the article. The SNES was so well designed, I still use it to this day (almost
20 years later).

------
meatpopsicle
Holy crap, everyone is wrong. I didn't think I'd see this day on HN.

The reason people resorted to blowing in the cartridges is because of the CIC
chip. The so-called "Lock-Out" chip on the NES is responsible for the Blinking
power button and games not working.

"Sometimes," I hear some of you say, "You'd take the game out, put it back in,
and it'd sometimes work. Why?" Well, imaginary question-asker, because the a
faulty CIC will work sporadically. if the code passes the CIC check, it
continues without issue. if the CIC fails halfway through your game, your game
doesn't stop working. If you power cycled the system, then you'd notice the
CIC failure. Blowing on the cartridge worked for the same reason doing 200
pushups will make water boil.

Nesdev.org has a decent amount of information about this chip on their wiki,
if anyone's interested.

TL;DR - clip two pins on the CIC chip, never blow in a NES cartridge again.

~~~
nollidge
I'd say they're not wrong as much as just not addressing that particular
complaint.

~~~
meatpopsicle
They were addressing whether or not blowing in a cartridge fixed a problem.
The same problem the CIC lockout chip was responsible for.

Therefore, they were addressing whether or not ignoring the CIC lockout chip
fixed or alleviated a problem. clearly, it does not.

Perhaps you can explain how ignoring the cause of the entire problem, blaming
the cartridge slot, and then working from a false presumption mean that
they're not wrong?

------
debacle
In my experience, DS cartridges are far worse than NES cartridges for this
issue. I don't know how they corrode the way they do, but I've sent my carts
to Nintendo numerous times for replacement.

------
danso
What a stupid article. You're supposed to _cough_ into the cartridge, not blow
in it. Then you insert the cartridge, slap the system's sides twice, and power
on

------
scovetta
I remember using rubbing alcohol on a q-tip against both sides of the
connector. That seemed to work well when blowing on it and rubbing it with
your shirt didn't.

~~~
CamperBob2
Isopropyl alcohol as sold in US drugstores/grocery stores is about 30% water,
though, and the alcohol evaporates a lot faster. So for the most part, those
who were cleaning their cartridge edge connectors with rubbing alcohol might
as well have been breathing on them or using water by itself.

One thing I couldn't tell from the article was whether those fingers actually
were bare copper, or gold plated. If they were bare copper, I'm amazed that
they lasted a week. If they were gold-plated, then the connection problems
would have been strictly in the harmonica connector inside the console itself,
at least until people started using pencil erasers. Blowing on the cartridge
itself would certainly have had no effect.

Another possibility is that Nintendo made the mistake of flashing gold
directly over copper when they should have used an intermediate layer of
nickel for passivation. This would probably result in connections that were
better than bare copper would have provided but not as reliable as a proper
surface treatment would have been.

------
sadga
That "experiment" tested whether excessive blowing damages a working
cartridge, not whether target blowing fixes a damaged cartridge.

------
conradfr
What about the Sega Master System ? I remember blowing my cartridges (also,
I'm not in the US), but I may be confusing.

------
irunbackwards
I thought blowing into the NES cartridge flipped the cosmic bits inside so
that it may be played once more?

------
javert
Article had a way too low signal/noise ratio. Way too verbose.

------
chuppo
I got a NES a few days ago with some games. Yes, blowing into the cartridge
works just as it always has. It can take 10 tries without blowing without
getting any video/audio, but blowing another game once or twice and the game
is on.

