I never thought it could happen!

[ATARIPITBULL]

I can say for sure that in all my time owning a Atari 2600 system, even the one I had as a kid, I have never run into a cart that did not play and now I finally have. I was in my Atari room playing a nice round of Pharao's Curse from CPUWIZ last night, when I decided that I wanted to play Tutankham from Parker Bro's, well I opened my NIB, Shrinkwrapped copy, popped it in and all i got was a bunch of colors and a loud humming sound coming from the TV speakers, I pulled it out and checked the front of the chip and it is covered in green like corrosion, I was floored, a brand new, never played game that was still shrinkwrapped has corrosion but games I have gotten from ebay that were already played, work just fine.

 

Can you guy's tell me how to take this corrosion off, or should I just buy another cart?

 

Edited October 14, 2006 by ATARIPITBULL

[hbomb]

On every cart that I get, new or otherwise, I use 90% clear isopryl alcohol (for quick evaporation) and a nylon swap. Dip it in and srub lightly until you see no more green. Don't use a cotton swap as the fibers catch on the cartridge. I use it mostly on my Nintendo NES cartridges as they tend to really screw up the system to where it won't play if not cleaned each time before use.

[Robert M]

The corrosion it either chemicals left over from the manufacturing process that were not cleaned off, and/or the copper contacts have corroded. You are going to need to take the PCB out of the shell. I recommend cleaning off what you can with a rag soaked in alcohol. Then try one of these tricks for reversing the copper corrosion:

 

Wash tarnished copper utensils with soap and warm water and polish with a cleaner of equal parts of salt, vinegar and flour. After rubbing the item with this mixture or any polish, wash it carefully, rinse thoroughly and dry.

 

Vinegar and Salt. If copper is tarnished, boil article in a pot of water with 1 tablespoon salt and 1 cup white vinegar for several hours. Wash with soap in hot water. Rinse and dry.

 

Salt, Vinegar, and Flour. Dissolve 1 teaspoon salt in 1 cup white vinegar. Add enough flour to make a paste. Apply the paste to copper and let sit for 15 minutes to 1 hour. Rinse with clean warm water, and polish dry.

 

Lemon and Salt or Baking Soda. Make a paste of lemon juice and salt, and rub with a soft cloth, rinse with water, and dry. Or use a slice of lemon sprinkled with baking soda. Rub copper with the lemon slice and rinse with water and dry. Vinegar and Salt. Pour vinegar over the surface Sprinkle salt over the acid and rub in the mixture. Rinse with warm water and polish dry.

 

Lemon Juice and Cream of Tartar. Make a paste of lemon juice and cream of tartar. Apply, leave on for 5 minutes, and then wash in warm water. Dry with a soft cloth.

 

Tarnished Copper: Polish with a commercial polish for copper following directions on the container. Polish can be made at home by moistening salt with vinegar or lemon juice to make a paste for a bright finish or a paste of rotten-stone and olive oil for a dull finish. After polishing decorative items, spray with lacquer to preserve color if desired.

 

The problem will be if the copper has detached from the fiberglass of the board. Then the cart is unrecoverable.

[StanJr]

for really stubborn corrosion, mix in a very light grade sandpaper and very very gently work over the corroded area. I saved a completely dead (NES)Mega Man cart this way. The alcohol wash and the sandpaper will eventually get you as close to recovered as you are going to get.

 

But don't sweat it too much, there are plenty of Tutankham carts out there and you can easily replace it for playing, then you can plop that CIB piece of garbage back in the box and act like you never opened it.

[Technosis]

On every cart that I get, new or otherwise, I use 90% clear isopryl alcohol (for quick evaporation) and a nylon swap.

 

90% sounds much better than the 70% that I've typically bought. I'm guessing that this is available from an electronics repair shop or hardware store ?

[+remowilliams]

Yeah, 90% alcohol and industrial contact cleaner (evaporative non lubricating) are the stuff that I use for regular cleaning.

 

For tough jobs, I have some very fine grit flexible sanding stuff. I recently got a NES cart that was not only green, but nice and fuzzy as well.

 

All three brought it back to like new condition pretty quickly

[Atari Rescue Group]

But don't sweat it too much, there are plenty of Tutankham carts out there and you can easily replace it for playing, then you can plop that CIB piece of garbage back in the box and act like you never opened it.

LOL

 

Might be worth shrinkwrapping it again. Seal that nasty thing up as is.

 

For sure a bad cartridge right out of the box is alarming. Personally, I'm still bummed because I can't get my used Subterranea cartridge to work.

[phitter]

That sucks. This is actually a pretty good port for the VCS.

 

-phitter

[shadow460]

I got a shrinkwrapped 7800 game that had quite a bit of label damage to it. The end label was folded and the main label was scratched unlike you'd expect from a shrinkwrapped game.

 

Stranger things have happened.

[jboypacman]

Hey Pitbull whats Pharao's curse all about?Never heard of that game.