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.![Big grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
![](https://i.gyazo.com/a9e1e05dc92b48083a831131570ba05d.jpg)
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!
![](https://i.gyazo.com/2f558c5493e9576e358b33cd5c9b0410.jpg)
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.