I recently bought a Super Nintendo and the ultimate Super Mario All-Stars (the one with Super Mario World built in). Luckily I found a pretty clean system, so I haven’t had any issues with dust or any problems playing my meager collections of games. Still, this is rather shocking: Apparently, blowing on a Nintendo (or Sega) cartridge to clean it is about the worst possible thing you could do. Oh lord, how naive we were as children!In a long history of cartridge-blowing — as well as great background on why Nintendo used cartridges in the first place — at Mental Floss, Chris Higgins says the problem is simple: our moist, water-laden breath being forcefully blown into the tight confines of an NES system creates the perfect environment for oxidation. So while blowing some dust away might work in the short term, it’s setting up games to become increasingly finicky down the line.From the piece:Higgins: "How did this lore about blowing into the cartridges spread across the US?"
Viturello: "It was very much a hive-mind kind of thing, something that all kids did, and many still do on modern cartridge based systems. Prior to the NES I don't recall people blowing into Atari or any other cartridge-based hardware that predated the NES (though that likely spoke to the general reliability of that hardware versus the dreaded front-loading Nintendo 72 Pin connectors). I suppose it has a lot to do with the placebo effect. US NES hardware required, on most games, optimal connection across up to 72 pins as well as communication with a security lock-out chip. The theory that 'dust' could be a legitimate inhibitor and that 'blowing it out' was the solution, still sounds silly to me when I say it out loud."Of course, the very act of pulling the cartridge in and out of its holder to blow on it might clean residue off the contacts. Or, considering the loose tolerances of cartridge and system construction, reinserting the game might just make for a better connections. In any case, whatever you do, stop worrying about dust!Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @derektmead.
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