Here's an NES fix: Take care of your original NES and don't jam your game load mechanism up and down so hard. I still have my original system from 1988, and it still works great. To me, I don't see any design flaw with the system as so many have claimed. It's more user error than anything else.
Half of the problem is keep your games' metal contacts clean. Take it apart to clean with an eraser if you have to. Dirty games will infest your system into permanent non-working status. I find that the dirty games come from cartridges bought from other users (Ebay, yard sales, flea markets, pawn shops, etc). Once I take care of the game, they stay clean. And your NES also will work perfectly.
No, I disagree. It was a bad design that wore out quickly, dirty carts or not. Period. That is why the newer NES consoles switched to the standard. I didn't exactly treat my SNES carts great, but gee, never had a problem, worked 99% of the time. My HuCards worked 99% of the time. Atari 2600 carts worked 99% of the time... Everywhere else you had a standard, simple push/pull design, dirty or not, full contact would work 99% of the time... Indeed, they STILL work 99% of the time.
My NES console however, The Lone Ranger with this tray, push down design, well, that was a whole other story. Some fights with some carts were much longer than others, but there were many battles alright... Getting games to work was a "project" in it of itself. Like I said though, you don't need a $20,000 fix, those NES Game Genies did the trick well enough, at least for my console. I discovered this very late in the game though, but yeah.
