i honestly think that the best way to do it is shutting it off, taking out the cartridge, putting it back in and turn the system on. repeat untill it works, it always does
Doom Cat
You’re all wrong. You have to build a time machine, travel to the future, and play the games from the future
Name
@Doom Cat, but that’s not fixing the NES. That’s not solving the problem.
hmmm… dont get the joke in this. i wasn’t born in 1987 or 1990… whenever this cartridge thing was created… so i dont get the point. could you explain it to me…
Old cartridge based systems tended to be a bit touchy, especially as they got older. So whenever someone would put a cartridge in, they would be their own little sequence to get the cartridge to work. For example, I blow in the cartridge, then into the system, then put it in, pop it out, repeat, then push reset. Each person has their own way, and think that their’s is the best.
The NES was particularly susceptible because Nintendo tried out a new type of cartridge connector, a type of zero insertion force connector. It used a spring loaded tray that you had to push down and lock into place giving it the nickname “The Toaster”. This turned out to be a very bad design flaw as the constant up and down soon bent the contacts out of shape making it very difficult to get a good connection. The revised NES top loader eliminated this problem.
The NES also featured a lockout chip that had to have a perfect connection it would refuse to load the program which only compounded the problem.
I was thinking the same thing. Glitches worried/concerned face looks very close to his puke face.
As for the solutions, they are forgetting it is system based; what works for one console may not fix another of the same model. Still funny to see them arguing about the “Correct” way to fix the issue, and how their go to fix was not the blow method.
What Nintendo tried to emulate was a “Zero Insertion Force” (ZIF) connection — a phrase that sounds like a bad joke about problems in bed, but is a real engineering notion. A ZIF connection is one in which the user doesn’t directly press the cartridge into its host connector — no insertion force is exerted by the user. This is a good thing from an engineering standpoint because users can do things like push too hard, and eventually connectors that require this kind of contact wear out. A typical mid-to-late 80s VCR is a variant of ZIF design: the tape goes in the front, then the machine grabs it and gently pulls it into place. That’s a pretty durable design. That’s not what the NES had, though. Its slot required insertion force, and it was buried inside a box — making it hard to fix when things went wrong.
In the NES, the user opened a front flap, slid a cartridge into the machine, and the insertion force occurred at the back of the machine, where the (hidden) cartridge slot lived — pins within the cartridge crammed up against the slot in the back. Then the user pushed the cartridge down (again emulating the behavior of a VCR) and powered on the console. This little ritual felt very satisfying, but over time the cartridge slot got dirty, its springs wore out, and the cartridges themselves got dirty. All of these factors worked together to cause poor contact between cartridge and slot, which meant your game just didn’t work — the machine couldn’t communicate with the cartridge over a bad connection, and frustration ensued.
That makes a lot of sense. I was born in the eighties so I got to experience all those little joys. It’s actually a good comparison to compare the NES to a Beta Cassette Player which LOVED to eat Beta Cassettes all the time.
Actually when you think about the fact that that technology is considered old fashioned and extremely outdated, but wasn’t created that far back, it really gives an impression that the advancement of such technology is speeding up at a perpetually accelerated rate. It’s both amazing and a little startling when you think about it. Makes you wonder what the future will bring.
Glitch’s face is one of the best he has ever made in the comic. Also, there is a surprisingly low amount of people shipping Glitch and Nano freaking out at Nano’s use of the word “our”.
Man, those were the days, trying to get an NES to work. I unfortunately tried the blow method (on both the cartridge AND the system) as well as trying to get the game firmly into the slot. And even when it did work almost half the time the graphics would be a mess. I tell you, though, it’s interesting playing Excitebike with the sprites and stuff all jumbled up.
lol, so much truth to this. Fact is any number of things got it working though. The tech aspect of the NES was that it actually had 2 contact points when inserting the cartridge. The first was the pins that would make contact with the bottom of the cartridge that could become loose or dirty, and the second was the oversized ribbon cable on the inside of the port when you clicked it down into place. Both contact points had issues and both were prone to poor connections at times. As any good tech savvy individual knows, the 2 biggest killers of electronics were dust and heat, and unfortunately the NES was no exception. The heat wasnt as big of an issue since it was a fairly open design and could vent out the front cartridge port, but unfortunately, this design also left it prone to dust collection, hence the blow method…
I remember my NES was one of the few that was relatively problem-free. My friends were absolutely amazed. Wasn’t like I didn’t play it; I was on the thing constantly. Like all good things, it started to wear out. I didn’t bother with the shuffle. I found that if I pressed the cartridge downward just a bit, it would work fine. Low tech solution was the remains of a pink, rubber eraser wedged between the top cover of the NES and resting in the little grip point on the cartridge.
I actually just started running into that issue on 3DS. I tried, for nostalgia’s sake, playing the DS Animal Crossing, and now my system practically refuses to read Bravely Default, only Bravely Default, oddly enough, correctly without screwing around with the GameCard.
Curses to spring based connectors. I never had those kind of issues with my GameBoy.
I’ll see that curse, and I’ll raise it one level by cursing the lack of anything to protect the connectors on their cartridges. Whenever one of my gameboy games isn’t working, I either do the shuffle or put it in another gameboy(I have 3, plus the gameboy player for GC) and it works every time. My copy of Fire Red, for instance, doesn’t work on my gamecube, but works on the other’s just fine(also I have a Mew, and every time I look at it, I get filled with joy and thankfulness that my cousins brought my Emerald with them to Japan to get the event I must have one of the only legit GenIII Mews in North America. In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t stop bragging about it)
Glitch’s face is my favorite. He looks supremely nonplussed. I also enjoy the fact that everyone in the comments has been giving technical advice on how the NES works and how to fix it.
My NES died when I accidentally jumped on the controller cord in the excitement over beating a boss in Mega Man 5. There was no saving it. I didn’t even get to see the power I got.
Oh, man. Those were the days. The NES days to be exact. XD
If the game wouldn’t work, I would blow on the cartridge and put it back in. If that didn’t work then I would blow the cartridge, blow inside the NES and then put the game cartridge in. If that didn’t work, I would get the cleaning kit to clean the cartridge. :)
glitch’s face in last looks like he’s gonna do his signature barfing, but still cute little glitch’s face. and that he has that little fluff on his head and nano doesn’t, is adorable. i wonder why nano wears that massive bow? whats she hiding…
What about sticking in another cartridge on top of the one that’s already in there?
Personally, I never had a shuffle method, I just kept puttin it in and out and blowing in it over and over again until I got something.
Then when I was older, I got the new NES model and I could turn the system upside down so it rests on the cartridge, and that worked very well.
And now that I know what I’m doing I just cleaned all of my cartridges and they work perfectly fine.
I remember one time for Megaman 3, it did the weirdest thing. I had to press my foot directly on top of the NES in the right spot, or else it would reset. I beat the entire game like that, with my foot sitting still, and dug into the machine.
With that being said, everyone who had an NES got it to work differently, because there were no two same ways to fix it. My fixes never worked on my friends NES, only mine.
I always thought you just had to blow into the cartridge and run a small toothpick through the areas you thought that had dust bunnies…at least that’s what I did d(-w-o)
I apologize for how late this post is, I was reading through the comics again and this one brought back a big nostalgia trip.
I had an NES for years, and I have to say, Pixel’s method was the only way that worked when it was acting buggy (either that or it was the actual tv, which could be fixed by slapping it). It’s just a shame that the new generation will never be able to experience what it was like back then, but that’s just the nostalgia talking :]
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74 thoughts on “Magic Touch”
MattoMatteo
It remember me the times with my C=64 games… they were memorized on tape cassettes!
Maxwellsmasher
Tru
Rakoru
Pixel is right
Nixorbo
Confirmed. The only way to do it.
Touko
Definitely.
Endmaster
i honestly think that the best way to do it is shutting it off, taking out the cartridge, putting it back in and turn the system on. repeat untill it works, it always does
Doom Cat
You’re all wrong. You have to build a time machine, travel to the future, and play the games from the future
Name
@Doom Cat, but that’s not fixing the NES. That’s not solving the problem.
TurtleMaster
was pixel the one who said to blow in the cartridge, because if so, i agree
TurtleMaster
im talking about my n64 tho, so it might be different
Cley Faye
Nobody’s right or wrong. It’s an issue with the connector used for a basic form of DRM. Just moving the cartridge, in any way, can fix the issue.
Rena
The lockout chip wasn’t always the problem. Any bad connection would make the game not work for one reason or another.
steamcrusader
This is the real reason gamercat wants the NES classic
Firren4
you just blow the catridge……
0713
Nope. Nintendo actually put in a warning not to blow in the cartridge in the manual.
retro
hmmm… dont get the joke in this. i wasn’t born in 1987 or 1990… whenever this cartridge thing was created… so i dont get the point. could you explain it to me…
Kieroni
Old cartridge based systems tended to be a bit touchy, especially as they got older. So whenever someone would put a cartridge in, they would be their own little sequence to get the cartridge to work. For example, I blow in the cartridge, then into the system, then put it in, pop it out, repeat, then push reset. Each person has their own way, and think that their’s is the best.
Chaucer
The NES was particularly susceptible because Nintendo tried out a new type of cartridge connector, a type of zero insertion force connector. It used a spring loaded tray that you had to push down and lock into place giving it the nickname “The Toaster”. This turned out to be a very bad design flaw as the constant up and down soon bent the contacts out of shape making it very difficult to get a good connection. The revised NES top loader eliminated this problem.
The NES also featured a lockout chip that had to have a perfect connection it would refuse to load the program which only compounded the problem.
Rena
Those old systems had crummy connectors, it could take a lot of wiggling the cartridge and fiddling with the power/reset buttons to make them work.
retro
urk, glitch’s face in last panel… is he gonna throw up on the system?
( kinda looks like a patrick the starfish meme…)
LostSorcerer
I was thinking the same thing. Glitches worried/concerned face looks very close to his puke face.
As for the solutions, they are forgetting it is system based; what works for one console may not fix another of the same model. Still funny to see them arguing about the “Correct” way to fix the issue, and how their go to fix was not the blow method.
Hazel
Glitch hasn’t actually barfed since Almost Cute…
Nes
What Nintendo tried to emulate was a “Zero Insertion Force” (ZIF) connection — a phrase that sounds like a bad joke about problems in bed, but is a real engineering notion. A ZIF connection is one in which the user doesn’t directly press the cartridge into its host connector — no insertion force is exerted by the user. This is a good thing from an engineering standpoint because users can do things like push too hard, and eventually connectors that require this kind of contact wear out. A typical mid-to-late 80s VCR is a variant of ZIF design: the tape goes in the front, then the machine grabs it and gently pulls it into place. That’s a pretty durable design. That’s not what the NES had, though. Its slot required insertion force, and it was buried inside a box — making it hard to fix when things went wrong.
In the NES, the user opened a front flap, slid a cartridge into the machine, and the insertion force occurred at the back of the machine, where the (hidden) cartridge slot lived — pins within the cartridge crammed up against the slot in the back. Then the user pushed the cartridge down (again emulating the behavior of a VCR) and powered on the console. This little ritual felt very satisfying, but over time the cartridge slot got dirty, its springs wore out, and the cartridges themselves got dirty. All of these factors worked together to cause poor contact between cartridge and slot, which meant your game just didn’t work — the machine couldn’t communicate with the cartridge over a bad connection, and frustration ensued.
retro
how long did you spend on that comment dude 0.0
Tsunami
That makes a lot of sense. I was born in the eighties so I got to experience all those little joys. It’s actually a good comparison to compare the NES to a Beta Cassette Player which LOVED to eat Beta Cassettes all the time.
Actually when you think about the fact that that technology is considered old fashioned and extremely outdated, but wasn’t created that far back, it really gives an impression that the advancement of such technology is speeding up at a perpetually accelerated rate. It’s both amazing and a little startling when you think about it. Makes you wonder what the future will bring.
Marscaleb
We had one of those VCRs where a slot popped up from the machine. It was a beast.
ROJO Y NARANJA
I DIDN’T HAVE A SPECIFIC TECHNIQUE, I ONLY PUT IN & OUT THE CARTRIDGE & RESETED THE NES UNTIL IT WORKED
retro
the tapistic comics are like a spoileeeer… but i cant help it, gc comics come out in a while so i always read then… shame on me.
trouble
one word, nano is hardcore. must be from playing all that dark souls. ( spoiler to the next comic ) GC u should be ashamed…
awesomesauce
i read it too, glitch’s eyes are orange?
Button Mash
Glitch’s face is one of the best he has ever made in the comic. Also, there is a surprisingly low amount of people shipping Glitch and Nano freaking out at Nano’s use of the word “our”.
provingapoint
Man, those were the days, trying to get an NES to work. I unfortunately tried the blow method (on both the cartridge AND the system) as well as trying to get the game firmly into the slot. And even when it did work almost half the time the graphics would be a mess. I tell you, though, it’s interesting playing Excitebike with the sprites and stuff all jumbled up.
Solar
Oh the memories…
I’m aging, aren’t I? >.<
Solus
Oh god the nostalgia, whyyyyy!
Anon
When it booted but flickered, you could quickly tap Reset and it’d stick successfully. Everyone figured that out pretty quick.
Sometimes you had to jam a second cart above the slot, or a book, or something to give it different pressure, or to make it secure against vibration.
And yes, we blew. Sometimes it seemed to work, supposedly because it applied conductive (and supposedly corrosive) moisture.
You knew which games worked on first boot, and which had quirks.
Rena
I pulled out the metal bar above the cart and jammed a second cart on top. It was probably bending the connectors even worse, but it worked.
Martialchaos
lol, so much truth to this. Fact is any number of things got it working though. The tech aspect of the NES was that it actually had 2 contact points when inserting the cartridge. The first was the pins that would make contact with the bottom of the cartridge that could become loose or dirty, and the second was the oversized ribbon cable on the inside of the port when you clicked it down into place. Both contact points had issues and both were prone to poor connections at times. As any good tech savvy individual knows, the 2 biggest killers of electronics were dust and heat, and unfortunately the NES was no exception. The heat wasnt as big of an issue since it was a fairly open design and could vent out the front cartridge port, but unfortunately, this design also left it prone to dust collection, hence the blow method…
Darian
I now feel old… T^T
GrayFeline
No no guys. That’s not the way to do it!
Just tap the top of the cartriage and the sides.
masterbirder227
wrong GrayFeline. you plug out, plug in, eject cartrige 3 times, then reset 2 times. works every time.
Lazule
I remember my NES was one of the few that was relatively problem-free. My friends were absolutely amazed. Wasn’t like I didn’t play it; I was on the thing constantly. Like all good things, it started to wear out. I didn’t bother with the shuffle. I found that if I pressed the cartridge downward just a bit, it would work fine. Low tech solution was the remains of a pink, rubber eraser wedged between the top cover of the NES and resting in the little grip point on the cartridge.
Mastermind202
You still may have to do that on a Ds or 3Ds, depending on how old it is. BTW, is glitch feeling okay in the last panel?
ShadowsofTime
I actually just started running into that issue on 3DS. I tried, for nostalgia’s sake, playing the DS Animal Crossing, and now my system practically refuses to read Bravely Default, only Bravely Default, oddly enough, correctly without screwing around with the GameCard.
Curses to spring based connectors. I never had those kind of issues with my GameBoy.
Fields of goats
I’ll see that curse, and I’ll raise it one level by cursing the lack of anything to protect the connectors on their cartridges. Whenever one of my gameboy games isn’t working, I either do the shuffle or put it in another gameboy(I have 3, plus the gameboy player for GC) and it works every time. My copy of Fire Red, for instance, doesn’t work on my gamecube, but works on the other’s just fine(also I have a Mew, and every time I look at it, I get filled with joy and thankfulness that my cousins brought my Emerald with them to Japan to get the event I must have one of the only legit GenIII Mews in North America. In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t stop bragging about it)
CiroSV
Oh God. I feel so old.
SuperDrummerGirl
I know right?
Snocone
Glitch’s face is my favorite. He looks supremely nonplussed. I also enjoy the fact that everyone in the comments has been giving technical advice on how the NES works and how to fix it.
My NES died when I accidentally jumped on the controller cord in the excitement over beating a boss in Mega Man 5. There was no saving it. I didn’t even get to see the power I got.
SuperDrummerGirl
Oh, man. Those were the days. The NES days to be exact. XD
If the game wouldn’t work, I would blow on the cartridge and put it back in. If that didn’t work then I would blow the cartridge, blow inside the NES and then put the game cartridge in. If that didn’t work, I would get the cleaning kit to clean the cartridge. :)
RayBro16
I always blew wind into my cartridges. then again, i was born in the days of the N64……
Stray
I did the same with NES cartridges. It seemed to work, but thinking back on it, it might have all been coincidence.
Evil13
I think its just because people weren’t blowing hard enough.
It always worked for me…
retro
glitch’s face in last looks like he’s gonna do his signature barfing, but still cute little glitch’s face. and that he has that little fluff on his head and nano doesn’t, is adorable. i wonder why nano wears that massive bow? whats she hiding…
Video game 4 life
Can’t wait till the next one
retro
WARNING: spoiler
video game 4 life, the next one is about… fnaf 4. that is all i can say.
hope you guys are ready for the scariest freddy’s yet! >:D
awesomesauce
am i the only one who thinks gc’s face in panels 2 and 5 are awesome?
Marscaleb
What about sticking in another cartridge on top of the one that’s already in there?
Personally, I never had a shuffle method, I just kept puttin it in and out and blowing in it over and over again until I got something.
Then when I was older, I got the new NES model and I could turn the system upside down so it rests on the cartridge, and that worked very well.
And now that I know what I’m doing I just cleaned all of my cartridges and they work perfectly fine.
YukoValis
I remember one time for Megaman 3, it did the weirdest thing. I had to press my foot directly on top of the NES in the right spot, or else it would reset. I beat the entire game like that, with my foot sitting still, and dug into the machine.
With that being said, everyone who had an NES got it to work differently, because there were no two same ways to fix it. My fixes never worked on my friends NES, only mine.
Kenneth
More art than science.
PathOfTheAwesomePie
I always thought you just had to blow into the cartridge and run a small toothpick through the areas you thought that had dust bunnies…at least that’s what I did d(-w-o)
Alexander
Glitch it’s so right, yes you are little one
Electrius
I apologize for how late this post is, I was reading through the comics again and this one brought back a big nostalgia trip.
I had an NES for years, and I have to say, Pixel’s method was the only way that worked when it was acting buggy (either that or it was the actual tv, which could be fixed by slapping it). It’s just a shame that the new generation will never be able to experience what it was like back then, but that’s just the nostalgia talking :]
Avery
I feel like I’m Pixle?
95Dino
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Lock@Shock@Barrel
Eh, maybe
noob / pro gamer
yeah i don’t get it.
Carter Fox
I like the adeptus mechanicus way of fixing the NES; which is with prayer and sacred ointments.
noob / pro gamer
OK
Extremely human
I asked my dad what he did to fix a NES and got stuck listening to a 40-step tutorial
StitchFan626
Dang! What did he have to do? Disassemble the console?
StitchFan626
Just how old are you?!
TurtleMaster42
I’m 11 and i remember this. (our family has very out dated consoles: a n64 and a PS2)
ThatRetroGamer
Sometimes you even had to replace the 8-pin connector. Also, wouldn’t they like Zelda I.
A girl
I don’t get the joke, please explain
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