ROM Cartridges. Lifespan, and other tidbits

On Tue, 19 Apr 2016, ethan at 757.org wrote: It seems like both sides can get worn out. I've seen carts that'd have problems wherever you took them, even on nearly new NES units. On the other hand I've seen well-worn NES systems that could barely play a brand-new cart. I'm guessing that's where replacing the finger module would really give you a new lease on life for your NES. It looked like some were plated with gold, some with tin, and others I couldn't really tell (copper? brass?). I'm guessing gold-plated edge connectors would be great, but who knows, maybe gold is too soft. I'm not a metallurgist or a EE, so I'm just speculating. Selling reproduction labels sounds like a cool side-job for someone with an extra dye-sub printer laying around. I didn't think of that. That makes a lot of sense. I was just a kid in the 80's. Business sense wasn't something I had a lot of at 8 years old. :-) Yes! I remember those. I was in Jr. High and I remember going to some older kid's house (spoiled rich kid with a huge computer lab). One of the many things he owned that made my 12 year old eyes bug out was one of the units you are describing. He'd rent all the new games from Blockbuster Video and then copy them off to 1.44MB 3.5" floppies. They were always called something like "Super Mega Duper" or some take-off on the game console name with a bit of Asian flare from Hong Kong where they were made. What I wonder is where did people get them? My family was too poor for such things, but I still wonder where that kid got that gadget in the pre-internet era. Ads in the back of magazines or something ? I think I remember reading the same thing somewhere. I just did. Neat. Here's the key excerpt from Wikipedia: "The version developed for the Atari 2600 featured a four-part harmony music soundtrack throughout the game, a first for the Atari 2600 platform. This was accomplished by building a custom chip called the "DPC" chip into the cartridge. This was also designed by game author David Crane." How many game designers of today could/would design their own silicon? I'm thinking there isn't a Unity module for that. :-) That was probably some business-weasels' idea. They ruin everything. Look what they did to Commodore. The could not physically produce and sell enough Amigas when they died. How can you f-up a business like that? Wait don't tell me, you let some Ivy-league CEO load up on debt, cut corners on production, screw your vendors & partners, stall and cut R&D then just continue making old hardware, and finally allow the trademark to be pass through so many idle hands that the name becomes meaningless. That seemed to do it for Commodore. I have one of those MVS conversion consoles. I would have got an AES, but uhhh, not for the prices they go for. I'd probably have to spend 2-10x as much to get the same collection. I just have 5 "real" carts of my favorites (Samurai Showdown and the like). I rarely use them as I also have the Stone Age Gamer 161-in-1 rig. Same here. Carts do make people more conducive to getting obsessive like this, though. You don't often see people getting that excited over 20 year old (and probably corrupt floppies) PC game original materials. Some Zelda games comes to mind. I've seen the raw carts go pretty cheap ($15-20 bucks on ebay $20-50 bucks at local used shops), but some of the special editions where people still have the box and dox go for $250 bucks on Ebay. Hmm, weird. I wonder if that is because the generations of pinball players are getting old enough to retire and need more hobbies? Then perhaps they go out and buy all the best machines with the coolest tables and effects? It makes me wonder if Neo Geo carts will be $1000 a pop when my generation (gen-x) starts to retire. Maybe it'll be Amiga that'll shoot up. I kind of doubt it, though. My guess is that commodity 3D printers will be good enough to print replicas (or enough parts to make your own replicas) in the next 30 years. That would change these hobby economies quite a bit. I know, right? It was always cool when some developer would go all-out and develop a game specifically to take advantage of one platform's hardware instead of trying to release it on umpteen platforms. Whenever they turned out any good games, there'd be a port to an "inferior" platform and we'd all know it since the gaming magazines would skewer them with screenshot comparisons. -Swift