Actually, with the Famicom (and the lesser-known top-loading NES) there was no need to do any of that. It worked pretty well. The problem was the front-loader, not the cartridges, although some people did get a lot of crap in their carts somehow... One time I had a guy bring a stack of NES carts into FuncoLand to sell them, and they had various things stuck to the pins-- Peanut butter, dirt, etc.
`Not as gross as the kids who brought in their NES to sell it to us, unleashing a stream of cockroaches from the insides when they set it on the counter.
And that's topped by the days when I worked in a video rental place with an Adult Room. A coworker got a videotape back once and said "Ew. It's covered with gel soap! Did he try to wash it?" and we looked at her, then at the VHS tape, and winced, saying "um... That's *not* soap..."
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Actually, with the Famicom (and the lesser-known top-loading NES) there was no need to do any of that. It worked pretty well. The problem was the front-loader, not the cartridges, although some people did get a lot of crap in their carts somehow... One time I had a guy bring a stack of NES carts into FuncoLand to sell them, and they had various things stuck to the pins-- Peanut butter, dirt, etc.
`Not as gross as the kids who brought in their NES to sell it to us, unleashing a stream of cockroaches from the insides when they set it on the counter.
And that's topped by the days when I worked in a video rental place with an Adult Room. A coworker got a videotape back once and said "Ew. It's covered with gel soap! Did he try to wash it?" and we looked at her, then at the VHS tape, and winced, saying "um... That's *not* soap..."
She quit the next day.