How many times have you blown....

The Jays · 10-03-2005, 08:28 AM

into a Nintendo cartridge over the course of your lifetime?

This phenmona has fascinated me for years. When I was young, and we had Nintendo games, it became an unwritten troubleshooter that blowing into the game would somehow improve its chances from going from blue screen to the video game.

Every game, the blue screen was the enemy.

Sometime the Nintendo would toy with you, and make it a solid blue screen. Most of the time it would blink. Sometimes it would be white, sometimes, you would get flashing game screen.

It wasn't even so much the blowing, as it was coming up with the proper sequence of blowing. How much spit should be applied? How quick should the bursts be?

My parents must have thought we were maniacs, kneeling before the tv, games into between our hands, as we blow furiously and answer back to them "This makes it work!"

No Atari game ever needed to be blown in. Nor any Genesis, or SNES game.

No, just the evil Nintendo. A flaw in its basic design made a generation of kids into foolish saps blowing into grey plastic boxes.

Galt · 10-03-2005, 01:30 PM

Not once in the last 15 years.

But I remember that SNK baseball was the most infuriating. The console couldn't handle the game. It was one of the first sports games that you could save your stats and play a season. And invariably, halfway through the season, it would all just go blank and erase.

Goatweed · 10-03-2005, 02:08 PM

it got to the point where they should have included that step in every game's manual.

Danked · 10-03-2005, 04:01 PM

It made my screen turn purple, not blue.

Thousands of times, I'm sure. Occasionally, I'll bust out the Nintendo and have to blow into the cartridges to make them work still. It is this and a combination of inserting the cartridge only a certain amount into the dock to get it to work properly.

Goatweed · 10-03-2005, 04:07 PM

yeah, I also recall certain games having to be instered certain ways (press more on the left side, or push it in, and once it was down you moved it slightly, etc). good times.

Danked · 10-03-2005, 04:22 PM

It is this, I'm sure, that prepared us for making love to a woman later in life.

Keyser Soze · 10-03-2005, 05:10 PM

we used to put games in the freezer, this seemed to require less 'blowing' later on.

HedCold · 10-03-2005, 06:12 PM

i would slam on the sides of the nintendo and blow in the cartridge. it seemed to work...
zelda saves got deleted all the time

crx girl · 10-03-2005, 06:28 PM

Danked Wrote:It is this, I'm sure, that prepared us for making love to a woman later in life.

i hope your blowing technique was a lot different than mine then.

Goatweed · 10-03-2005, 06:35 PM

normally I would say something like "I'd love to check out your technique" after a post such as yours, but you'd rather get pissed on by Gonzo so those posts are no more.

crx girl · 10-03-2005, 06:41 PM

oh shit. i broke the goat.

Goatweed · 10-03-2005, 06:51 PM

more than you know Confused

afdace:

crx girl · 10-03-2005, 07:03 PM

now you're making me feel bad

Goatweed · 10-03-2005, 07:23 PM

as well you should, but I'd rather feel bad then rejected for someone who wants to piss on you!

2 tired 2 give N F · 10-03-2005, 07:49 PM

Rubbing Alcohol + Q-tip = works every time

Also, I just refurbished my old nintendo box. I bought a new 72-pin connector on Ebay and every game works first time after cleaning them with the above equation.