ELi5: why did old cartridge games not boot up properly and people would end up blowing on them?

Question

ELi5: why did old cartridge games not boot up properly and people would end up blowing on them?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Generally it was because the contacts weren’t making good…contact. People would blow on them to remove dust. What people were actually doing was exposing them to moisture and making corrosion worse and degrading the contacts. Often what actually worked just fine was inserting and removing the cart a couple of times to clean things up.