DP MYTHBUSTERS : Blowing in NES Cartridges

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I like the experiment, but I'm curious to hear how you reached this conclusion. Increasing the conductivity and, therefore, rendering the game playable seems pretty far-fetched; the magic, I would argue, is simply reseating the game (which one has to do after blowing on the cartridge each time).

Sounds like a second science experiment that could be done...

I reached that theoretical conclusion, because moisture inarguably increases conductivity.

And while I agree that repeatedly re-seating a cartridge in a toaster NES could probably yield an above average level of success in getting it to boot ... I believe that the act of "blowing" (moisture) into games likely yields a level of success above and beyond JUST re-seating them repeatedly, or else this phenomenon wouldn't have become the practice of hundreds of thousands of Nintendo users during the life of the system.

Here's a diagram of exactly what I'm describing ...



Figure A. No moisture, no contact being made.



Figure B. Moisture, contact being bridged.