Cartridge CPR Origins

[Drighton]

It seems to be a universal thing, this cartridge cpr. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I'm referring to that old technique to get your NES or other cartridge games to work. It usually involved:

• Blowing on the exposed circuit board of the cartridge
• Slam the cartridge (open side faced down)
• Rapid insertion/docking of the cartridge
• Multiple pressings of the reset and/or power buttons.
• Rigging the cartridge with a wedge.

In casual nostalgic conversation with the one who taught me the invaluable technique I began to wonder where it originated? The method is so, for lack of a better word, ghetto that it seems unlikely that this method was passed down by a Nintento customer service rep.

My teacher learned from his cousins in Pennsylvania. Since I have no contact with them, thats where my cold trail ends. Yeah, I didn't go far.

So, if you can fondly remember and laugh about this topic, where did you learn your Cartridge resuscitation method, and for kicks, what did it involve?

(edit: addition. thanks to blaze)

[blaze_shinigami]

this takes me back.

only thing I can add is putting a piece of paper in there to stop jiggling, and holding down the cartridge until you saw the game actually come on (cause only then was it safe).  The Advent of the CD into gaming ended all the frustration. cartridge marks on the wall.

I used to see my brother do it, and it seemed to work.

q-tips, too.

anyone played with their consoles upside down?

[Drighton]

yes, I forgot about rigging the cartridge.

Never played upside down. In my family, q-tips were fancy. :p If we had them, you only used them for your ears.

[charaman]

I learned it from my cousins too. We live in Pennsylvania. I guess we found the source.


Cousins.

Pennsylvania.

[69_so_fine]

i learned it from my cousin who learned it from his brother who lived in mossuri and it just consisted of basically everything that you guys alredy said sorry to end you guys trail but i have no family in pennsylvania at least not that i know of

[Tomi]

So thats why old school gamers have such good respitory systems...

[Drighton]

Oh elusive genius, where art thou....

Originally posted by Tomi
So thats why old school gamers have such good respitory systems...

Ah, Tomi, you have no idea.
You see, after some time doing each part of the method in random order, if the game still failed to work, you would repeat, inceasing the power with which you blow, since the previous knottage did not do the trick. Needless to say, you would see stars.


I remember playing Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. My brother and I, with our friends (also brothers) would spend all day trying to beat the game. However, we were not spoiled with save points as the newer generations are. If you run out of lives, you have to start the game over from the beginning.

We would constantly strive to: 1) solve the timed puzzle that would reveal what the Holy Grail looked like, 2) navigate through all the levels using only three (?) lives, since after that you had to start over, 3) picking the Holy Grail at the end. The grail was different each time you played, so if you didn't get at least a small portion of what the grail looked like in the beginning then you just had to pick at random.

We never beat that game, but man it was fun trying to.

[MrMister]

Sega Genesis cartridges had to be blown on every single time you wanted to play... that thing was fragile. If you even looked at it wrong, the game would freeze.

[Archem]

I didn't learn this technique, I discovered it! I'm not claiming to be the first to try it, I know that's not true. Instead, my aggressive personality coupled with an occasional head of steam (often indused by a previous beating from being bad), I would throw it at the wall (which would bring about another beating), blow in it, and generally abuse it. It worked, and soon I became the #1 pro at making a cart work. Even today, I can make ANY cartridge work, even when no one else can do it. My skills, oddly enough, have translated to today's CDs and DVDs, which occasionally get scratched, stained, smudged, and uglified. This is no nostalgic test for me: I still play GBA games.

[MrMister]

Originally posted by Archem2
I didn't learn this technique, I discovered it! I'm not claiming to be the first to try it, I know that's not true. Instead, my aggressive personality coupled with an occasional head of steam (often indused by a previous beating from being bad), I would throw it at the wall (which would bring about another beating), blow in it, and generally abuse it. It worked, and soon I became the #1 pro at making a cart work. Even today, I can make ANY cartridge work, even when no one else can do it. My skills, oddly enough, have translated to today's CDs and DVDs, which occasionally get scratched, stained, smudged, and uglified. This is no nostalgic test for me: I still play GBA games.

NDS carts are like 2 mm thick, though.
They'd crumble.

[Razor]

Originally posted by blaze_shinigami
The Advent of the CD into gaming ended all the frustration. cartridge marks on the wall.

Lies! CD scratches!

[blaze_shinigami]

Originally posted by MrMister
Sega Genesis cartridges had to be blown on every single time you wanted to play... that thing was fragile. If you even looked at it wrong, the game would freeze.

lol. yes! aww man, it would be like, segaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

****!!

Originally posted by Razor
Lies! CD scratches!

There's a skin out nowadays, but you needed discipline to handle CDs back in the day. It was an art form. Like Bushido.

[DragonBlaze]

I've had more problems with CDs than I ever did with cartrages! My ps and ps2 always had problems with reading CDs, and I've even boughten used games that were too scraged to play on the psx. But as long as I owned the psx game, I felt no shame in downloading it to play on my computer, I did own the game so I had the rights to download it.

The only time I ever had a problem with cartrages was when I tried playing snes games on my n64. I put an n64 gameshark in the 64, then I put a snes game on the gameshark. My 64 wouldn't work for a week.

For the snes games, as long as you keep the little plastic protector on them, and use a dust cleaner on the actual system once and a while, it works fine

[Meiscool-2]

I used a wet tooth brush..... i'll let you guess for yourself how that one worked.

*sniff* Final Fantasy Four... I miss you so much!

[blaze_shinigami]

Originally posted by DragonBlaze
I've had more problems with CDs than I ever did with cartrages! My ps and ps2 always had problems with reading CDs, and I've even boughten used games that were too scraged to play on the psx. But as long as I owned the psx game, I felt no shame in downloading it to play on my computer, I did own the game so I had the rights to download it.

The only time I ever had a problem with cartrages was when I tried playing snes games on my n64. I put an n64 gameshark in the 64, then I put a snes game on the gameshark. My 64 wouldn't work for a week.

For the snes games, as long as you keep the little plastic protector on them, and use a dust cleaner on the actual system once and a while, it works fine

What? dust cleaner? I blew into the consoles. slapped em. flipped  'em over. they were  real troopers, those poor bastards.