Blowing into NES cartridges

Interestingly, I read an article about this on mentalfloss.com just the other day. The moral of the story was that blowing into the cartridges actually damaged them over time, a result of the moisture in our breath corroding the metal connections. I was quite dismayed to read that, thinking of all the cartridges I probably ruined in the course of one short lifetime. I have the link to the article, if you're interested. It includes a neat side-by-side photographic comparison of two twenty-year-old-or-so cartridges, one not blown into and the other having been blown into (spoiler: there is a BIG difference!)
 
I read this article as well. I'm pretty sure most of my old cartridges have trouble working because of this..
 
I need to read that article! I always used to blow into the cartridge and it would work almost immediately. To me, it seemed logical to clear out the dust. My little quirk was blowing into the cartridge 3 times before giving it a try. I'm sure now that it didn't matter I did it 3 times, but back then, it sure made me feel good :D
 
I used to blow on that darn thing for hours, up to the point I felt like the wolf in the 3 little pigs, and it still wouldn't work. What worked for me was using a baby wipe to clean the game. Also when the game genie came out, that helped. Even if you didn't use the codes, it plugged straight into the system and it helped make a lot of the games work on the first try.
 

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