Ever find "things" inside your carts?

[Hatta]

I was refurbishing old PCs in the mid 90s, and was working on some ancient heap of an IBM PC. The thing powered up just fine, but when I went to take a look inside I found a large wasp's nest. Thankfully it was empty, and the wasps had done no damage.

[Arkhan]

true story, I opened up an FF1 cart NES to see about changing the battery so it would save again

 

and inside there, somehow, were some magic the gathering cards, lol.

 

I dunno if the previous owner stashed them there and forgot, or what. But man was that really random. Its a shame the 3 cards that were in there were common/crappy.

[raskar42]

I was refurbishing old PCs in the mid 90s, and was working on some ancient heap of an IBM PC. The thing powered up just fine, but when I went to take a look inside I found a large wasp's nest. Thankfully it was empty, and the wasps had done no damage.

 

mental image someone opening a pc and getting attacked by bees.

 

i now have a new phobia.. thanks.

[Arkhan]

I was refurbishing old PCs in the mid 90s, and was working on some ancient heap of an IBM PC. The thing powered up just fine, but when I went to take a look inside I found a large wasp's nest. Thankfully it was empty, and the wasps had done no damage.

 

mental image someone opening a pc and getting attacked by bees.

 

i now have a new phobia.. thanks.

 

 

 

It only happens if your computer has a B drive.

 

haha. get it?

 

man that was corny.

[SlowCoder]

It only happens if your computer has a B drive.

 

haha. get it?

 

man that was corny.

 

Very corny, but I still laughed.

 

I, too, have seen nests in old PCs. At my old job we had a warehouse and stacks of old PCs waiting to be bought or recycled. roaches, bees, lizards, etc would get in the systems through the various vents. Mostly, though, they'd go in through the power supply. You'd move a PC and something would crawl out giving you the heebie jeebies.

[Tempest]

Nothing too interesting (thankfully). Mostly string, lint, soda residue, and the occasional dead spider. Never found roaches or anything of that nature thankfully. I think the most interesting thing I found was a nickle that had been jammed up into a 2600 cart (how I couldn't tell you).

 

Tempest

[flammingcowz]

Why do you guys open up the carts? I would never know if anything was inside of mine, I just buy them then play them. Maybe clean the contacts but that's about it.

[VectorGamer]

Why do you guys open up the carts? I would never know if anything was inside of mine, I just buy them then play them. Maybe clean the contacts but that's about it.

 

You can push the "door" open on the Atari carts to clean the contacts. That's when you find the critters that made a home inside of the cart.

[SlowCoder]

Why do you guys open up the carts? I would never know if anything was inside of mine, I just buy them then play them. Maybe clean the contacts but that's about it.

When you get a new (to you) cart, do you shake it, or rotate it? Do you ever hear the rattle of something small inside?

 

It's obvious that some of the carts I've recieved from eBay were stored amongst the hammers and nails in garages or sheds for years. It shouldn't be surprising to find small nails or other debris that have made their way into the carts. If it's metal, it could easily short the cart from the inside.

[AtariLeaf]

I found a chunk of Jimmy Hoffa in a heavy sixer once.

[flammingcowz]

I found a chunk of Jimmy Hoffa in a heavy sixer once.

 

THATS where he was?!?!

[AtariLeaf]

I found a chunk of Jimmy Hoffa in a heavy sixer once.

 

THATS where he was?!?!

 

Well, a chunk anyway. Everyone, open up your heavy sixer and lets see if we can put Jimmy Hoffa back together again

[jblenkle]

Yeah, I've got a real weird one...I used to review video games for a newspaper I worked for. The companies would send me games so I could play them and write the review.

 

I forget what company it was and what game (this was like 18 years ago), but when I plugged the game into my console, it was a totally different game from a different company that came up.

 

Someone had opened up and put an entirely different set of chips into the cartridge. I sent it back to the company that had sent it to me with a note and a request for a new cartridge, but I never heard from them again. I have a feeling they think that I had done it.

 

I also found a cartridge with a paperclip in it, but that wasn't quite as exciting.