Fix a Broken Nintendo with an Expired Savings Card

Perhaps, like me, you have an old NES and have come to discover that no matter how many times you blow into the cartridges, the game just won't load. So, you looked up on the internet how to get your games to load. Using the first tidbit of advice you found, you then tried cleaning off the cartridge with a 50/50 solution of water and isopropyl alcohol. That seemed to help a little, but now all your game does is flash on and off ad infinitum. Perhaps, like I was, you are now at your wits end?

Well have I discovered the solution for you! Using little more than my expired Duane Reade savings card, I was able to get my games to load each and every time. Follows are instructions on how I managed to fix the NES flashing screen problem. 

Step 1 Insert your cartridge

Load your cartridge into the Nintendo as you normally would.

Comments

[50 Pound Brain]

I had no idea that NES game cartridges were 8-track-tape based!

[TechParadox]

Not sure what you're referring to there, but I (and many others, I'm sure) can verify that there is absolutely no magnetic tape in a NES cartridge.  The problem the author is solving is directly related to the the pins in the cartridge no longer making good contact with the interface inside the NES unit.  By wedging the folded card (or any other shim, for that matter) between the cartridge and the slot it is forcing the cart into making contact with the internal pins.  The fix the author presents is a good temporary work-around but the only way to permanently fix the issue is to open the NES up and bend the pins in the cartridge slot back into their normal operating position.

[50 Pound Brain]

It was a joke.  I'm rather old and when I wqas young there were 8-track tape players in cars.  Do you know how an 8-track was set up?  It was basically a magnetic tape around 4 times as wide as a cassette.  As the tape played, the head read two of the tracks, forming stereophonic sound.   Once it reached the end of the tape, the head moved to the next set of tracks.  Each tape had 4 channels consisting of two tracks each.  If you picture eight horizontal parallel lines one on top of each other, channel 1 consisted of the head reading lines 1 and 5, channel 2 read lines 2 and 6, etc.  The tape itself was a huge loop and when the tape came to the splice, that signaled it to change channels.  As the player or tape got old, we had to stick paper matchbooks between the tape cartridge and the player slot to act as a shim and get the tracks to properly align with the head.  Usually what would happen was the left speaker was playing songs from one channel and the right would be playing songs from another channel.  And the best song on an album (another long story: albums) would be split between two channels.

[TechParadox]

I get you there. While I wasn't around in their heyday, I remember 8-tracks - a friend of my parents had quite the collection. I never saw anyone jam a matchbook in between the cart and the slot to get it to play properly, which is why the joke just went *WHOOSH* over the top of my head.  Either way, it sounds like both methods are a temporary fix. :)

[ac1D]

Matchbook are so useful. I stick them in the coin slot of the cart at my local grocery store to have the cart for free :)

[QueenQuill]

lol...You must be Canadian.  When my brother moved to Canada he told me about having to pay for a shopping cart, and I was dumbfounded.  Silly Canuks.  ;) 

[nzkiwi]

What part of Canada? We don't pay for our shopping carts in Toronto.
I've never heard of it. Must be out west.

[zack247]

in central canada we do, in SK shopping carts can temporarily cost you $1.

[rrrmanion]

in the Uk and many other parts of Europe they do this too, trying to reduce the number of trolleys people steal, unfortunately,the slots don't know the difference between a coin and a coin sized plastic disc...

[andreblue]

not everywhere does that, so far none seen

[annaliesa!]

Paying for shopping carts? I blame Bubbles!

He really needs to find a better way to make money besides steeling shopping carts.

[ac1D]

Yeah I am  Canadian lol.
We don't have to pay everywhere, and most of the place, you get your cash back when you return it. They did this because kid from school stole them.

[V-Man737]

ROFLCOPTR

[Saturn V]

Me no speak text. English?

[1spartan95]

I found a bunch of NES's on Ebay with this problem! Imma get one!

[randofo]

This is more of a hack than a permanent solution.

[the_burrito_master]

The best game on the market.

[Kryptonite]

Wow. Your ingenuity is magical.