Why are third party carts so difficult?

Giles N · July 1, 2020

On 6/30/2020 at 4:14 AM, 0078265317 said:

Got miner working. Peeled back the lable. Was not mint to begin with. so no big deal. Took the screws out and opened her up. Rubbed the contacts with my fingers and its working now. Must of been some few spots left.

Very good to hear you got it working!!

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These contacts... to be de-oxidated; so important!

patroclus99 · July 4, 2020

I believe the root culprit to these persnickety, third party 5200 cartridges is the PCB; the PCB in third party cartridges is thinner than the Atari cartridges, resulting in variable contact-gaps between the male/female connections. I also think the 5200 console cartridge-contacts were slightly farther apart than those in the 2600, so the thinner PCBs in some third party titles for the 2600 did not cause any issues. Basically, re. the 5200 third-party manufacturers had the incorrect design-specs or Activision et al. were not going to bother seeking another PCB supplier specifically for this console; I suspect the latter, because I think most third-party developers understood that the Super System already had one foot in the grave.

Pampering this third-party crap helps somewhat. . . cleaning, dismantling, cleaning. . . zzz. . . but you'll inevitably encounter intermittent issues later on. Playing them as much as possible, or leaving them in the console for while is useful; almost all electronics at that time loved abuse and overuse, especially synthesizers and electronic organs. . . if they sat around unused, performance went down the tubes. The older solid-state Hammond organs were an exception. Anyway, what I've found to be most helpful is using two 3 X 5 notecards. Fold the notecards in half. Insert the notecard with the cartridge gently but firmly, the notecard can be on the front or on the back. Some games like the notecard on the front, some on the back. And, one, H.E.R.O likes the a notecard on the front and the back. . . zzz. If you play a title regularly, you can forgo using 2000-year-old technology to get these stupid things to work.

I've considered applying some solder-beads to the base-contacts of some of these cartridges; but most third-party titles are mostly just sloppy ports, so I didn't bother. The third-party titles I really enjoy like Dreadnaught Factor and Zone Ranger, for whatever reason, have given me no troubles.

At any rate, good luck, I hope this helps!