Performa
Member
Many moons ago, a good friend of mine at work passed an old Nintendo 64 console my way, and I've used it intermittently over the years. I grew up in a Sega and later PlayStation household, so I didn't have one of these growing up. It is a neat machine, and I was looking forward to breaking it out for Evercon- when i discovered it didn't work. It would send out a video signal, but that was about it.
Not great! So after a few failed attempts to get it working myself, I reached out to @PS2it who found time to recap it for us (mad props again sir!) but the system still wasn't working properly. In defeat, I took it to the wizards over at Gaming Generations in Stevens Point, who agreed to take a look at it. While they only work on video game consoles (oh how I wish I could drop an Amiga or Macintosh off for recapping!) this has saved my bacon many a time before, and this time was no exception!
So, what was wrong? We're still not quite sure. A few of the carts I was using had some corrosion on the pins- otherwise they weren't able to find a problem with it. I have no idea why it stopped working, nor did they find any reason that it wouldn't work fine. I'd start to think that I was crazy if not for PS2it confirming that it wasn't working for him either. Just plain weird!
On the upswing, when I get my tax return, I think I'm going to splurge on an EverDrive USB adapter cartridge, so we can play a wider range of games than the smattering I have now. Some N64 games are kinda crazy priced now, and many of them are considered the best, so that'll make that feasible for events going forward.
Not great! So after a few failed attempts to get it working myself, I reached out to @PS2it who found time to recap it for us (mad props again sir!) but the system still wasn't working properly. In defeat, I took it to the wizards over at Gaming Generations in Stevens Point, who agreed to take a look at it. While they only work on video game consoles (oh how I wish I could drop an Amiga or Macintosh off for recapping!) this has saved my bacon many a time before, and this time was no exception!
So, what was wrong? We're still not quite sure. A few of the carts I was using had some corrosion on the pins- otherwise they weren't able to find a problem with it. I have no idea why it stopped working, nor did they find any reason that it wouldn't work fine. I'd start to think that I was crazy if not for PS2it confirming that it wasn't working for him either. Just plain weird!
On the upswing, when I get my tax return, I think I'm going to splurge on an EverDrive USB adapter cartridge, so we can play a wider range of games than the smattering I have now. Some N64 games are kinda crazy priced now, and many of them are considered the best, so that'll make that feasible for events going forward.
