How long will our neo carts last?

wyo

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Dear diary, today the darkness ended as I was taken out of my cardboard box and inserted into my masters slot.

Dear diary, 20 years have passed and now I have been sold to a fat shelf queen, when will I die?

If a cart fails on a shelf and no one is around to play it, does it make a sound?
 

evil wasabi

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I think that it was Chris Ray who was talking about this 20 years ago, that around today we would start seeing boards deteriorate, and one reason being that plastic is water based. I may be wrong on all points, since this was like 2001ish. But degradation would probably be delayed by coating the pcb with a protectant, keeping your carts sealed in their cases, and then covering the cases with airtight bags, or 2nd level cases, then keeping those carts sealed behind UV protected glass on a shelf. :loco:
 

Bishamon

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Remember the initial enthusiasm about CDs? They were promoted as pretty much "eternal". :lolz: My Amiga floppy discs and my VHS tapes are outlasting most of my burned CDs and DVDs, which are becoming unreadable and dying like flies.

The main problem with recordable optical media is the dyes used, most of which break down in a few years. Pressed optical discs, particularly CDs, will last virtually forever so long as the reflective layer remains reflective. As long as there is no physical damage from scratches, the life of the reflective layer depends on composition and storage, as well as quality of manufacturing. Some discs were manufactured poorly such that portions of the reflective layer are exposed (usually along the inside or outside edge), which can allow oxidation. A particular PDO (Philips) plant in the U.K. was using a laquer in the late 80s and early 90s that was reacting with the reflective layer; I have several discs that appear deep gold to bronze from above, and are damn near transparent when held to a light. They still read, surprisingly.

The larger problem with multi-layer discs is the adhesive used between the layers. Some DVDs are prone to the layers delaminating, rendering the discs unreadable.
 

Atro

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At least it's fun to repair neogeo games when they break.
VSIpzhi.jpg

What's the issue with that Waku Waku 7?
 

Catoblepa

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CDs manufactured out of glass masters through sputtering pretty much are if you (and the pressing plant) know what you're doing. Unfortunately some bad batches exist meaning some are probably being eaten away by that corrosion or metal eating fungus ("disc rot"), my old Street Fighter Zero disc was like that back in the day, but I'd wager a good amount of discs will outlast us all.

The main problem with recordable optical media is the dyes used, most of which break down in a few years. Pressed optical discs, particularly CDs, will last virtually forever so long as the reflective layer remains reflective. As long as there is no physical damage from scratches, the life of the reflective layer depends on composition and storage, as well as quality of manufacturing. Some discs were manufactured poorly such that portions of the reflective layer are exposed (usually along the inside or outside edge), which can allow oxidation. A particular PDO (Philips) plant in the U.K. was using a laquer in the late 80s and early 90s that was reacting with the reflective layer; I have several discs that appear deep gold to bronze from above, and are damn near transparent when held to a light. They still read, surprisingly.

The larger problem with multi-layer discs is the adhesive used between the layers. Some DVDs are prone to the layers delaminating, rendering the discs unreadable.

I know I was bein' unfair towards optical discs, and I'm aware of the technical differences between printed and recordable (not to the extent of your explanation Bishamon, thanks! It's a very interesting read). ;)
Still, I think it's funny that magnetic supports are holdin' up so well, and our recorded CDs and DVDs are becomin' less and less reliable; in my opinion, any backup is at risk at this point (even on good brands like Verbatim).
 

titchgamer

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I moved away from disc based back ups years ago and went to a combination of SD/USB/SSD devices.

Recordable disc stuff is naff.
 

ballzdeepx

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I’ve had three carts die due to mask roms failing.
Repairing them with new EPROMs arent very hard if tou have the tools (desoldering gun, eprom programmer).

Having the tools is one part, but how do you know what ROM(s) have gone bad outside of messed up sound or graphics?
 

shadowkn55

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Having the tools is one part, but how do you know what ROM(s) have gone bad outside of messed up sound or graphics?

Sometimes a burnt spot will appear in the middle of the rom. That's where the die is located and if it shorts out, it'll leave a mark.
 

Neo Alec

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Gotta love these perennial topics. When will my carts/systems die? When are prices going to crash? Emulation is going to kill off everything, etc, etc. They've existed since even the Neo's first decade.
 

Bishamon

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I know I was bein' unfair towards optical discs, and I'm aware of the technical differences between printed and recordable (not to the extent of your explanation Bishamon, thanks! It's a very interesting read). ;)
Still, I think it's funny that magnetic supports are holdin' up so well, and our recorded CDs and DVDs are becomin' less and less reliable; in my opinion, any backup is at risk at this point (even on good brands like Verbatim).

Very true. I have a bunch of, um, 'backups' for the PS1 from 23+ years ago that I haven't tried in ages; I have no idea how many would work. I have been replacing the ones I really want to play with originals.

I did start using 'Archival Gold' CD-Rs from Delkin Devices years ago for important backups; they use gold for the reflective later and high longevity recording dye. They are 'guaranteed' to last 300 years, but I figure even half of that is more than long enough. ;)
 

Catoblepa

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Very true. I have a bunch of, um, 'backups' for the PS1 from 23+ years ago that I haven't tried in ages; I have no idea how many would work. I have been replacing the ones I really want to play with originals.

I did start using 'Archival Gold' CD-Rs from Delkin Devices years ago for important backups; they use gold for the reflective later and high longevity recording dye. They are 'guaranteed' to last 300 years, but I figure even half of that is more than long enough. ;)

lol I also have a bunch of PS1 and PS2... yeah, backups of original games... and yesterday I've tried to run them for the first time in years. Now, it might also be a laser problem, but I had like a 30% success rate on both the PS1 and PS2. A complete disaster. Thank God the PS2 version of Pochi to Nyaa still works, I'm gonna copy that on hard disk as soon as I can (that ISO is very hard to find).

Didn't know about those Delkin CDs... sounds impressivel! :D
 

Buffi

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Having the tools is one part, but how do you know what ROM(s) have gone bad outside of messed up sound or graphics?

Desolder all roms you suspect.
Dump them.
See which one doesnt match CRCs in mame.
 

Shuri

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I have two carts that have developed weird sound issues, suddenly.

The contacts are crystal clear, but the sound comes out garbled, and in the case of Samurai Shodown 5, wrong sound voice samples are being played for some characters. I've found a few posts of people with the same symptoms. I'm starting to wonder if it's not a developing problem.
 

theMot

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Sell all this fucking shit while you still have a chance.
 

Heinz

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Sell all this fucking shit while you still have a chance.

Imagine in 20 years time when these chumps think it's finally time to retire in the Bahama's and find out it's all worthless trash....I mean worthless trash that people won't pay money for.
 

joe8

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Remember the initial enthusiasm about CDs? They were promoted as pretty much "eternal". :lolz: My Amiga floppy discs and my VHS tapes are outlasting most of my burned CDs and DVDs, which are becoming unreadable and dying like flies. Of course there's also the disc rot with Laserdisc. Granted, most writable optical discs were cheaply made to reduce costs, and the better - and costly - ones are still working, but I've found it's the reverse of what everybody expected: carts seem pretty much eternal (I've rescued some from the mud, and they still work), magnetic supports are holding surprisingly well, and optical discs not so much. That's another reason why I don't like to collect stuff from the Playstation era on, the supports feel... cheap and unreliable.
Digital media, and things like VHS tapes, floppy discs and music cassettes all have their own problems.
If you keep floppy discs & VHS tapes stored well, and never use them much, they will last a long time. But every time you play a vinyl record, a cassette, or a VHS tape, you degrade the sound or video slightly.
Game carts are different because they have ROM chips- they are more like digital media, such as CD's, which store data in 1's and 0's. When they they fail, they fail completely.
CD's and DVD's only become unreadable because over time they get scratched, or warped/aged. Apart from that, the 1's and 0's on a CD never actually get corrupted.

Old technology is better in some ways than new technology. CRT TV's are better than all the flat screens that came after, such as LCD, LED and plasma. But TV manufacturers make more money from selling flat panels, as they don't cost as much to make, and they aren't as bulky. Only now with OLED, are TV's catching up to the picture quality of CRT's.
I also prefer to watch films that were shot on film, rather than with a digital movie camera.
 
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Bishamon

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Old technology is better in some ways than new technology. CRT TV's are better than all the flat screens that came after, such as LCD, LED and plasma. But TV manufacturers make more money from selling flat panels, as they don't cost as much to make, and they aren't as bulky. Only now with OLED, are TV's catching up to the picture quality of CRT's.
I also prefer to watch films that were shot on film, rather than with a digital movie camera.

Flat panel technology did NOT arise from it being less expensive to manufacture than CRT; for a long time, it was far more expensive. LCD (including LED, which is a silly name because they don't actually use LEDs to create the image) offers some significant advantages over CRT, though black level and response time are not among those advantages. While I miss my CRTs in some respects, things I definitely do not miss include convergence issues, pincusioning, blooming, and burn-in.

I do with I still had a couple of my old CRTs for retro-gaming, but sadly, I gave away my last CRT 20 years ago.
 

Catoblepa

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I also prefer to watch films that were shot on film, rather than with a digital movie camera.

Couldn't agree more... and it's not just a matter of chemical process (the constantly changing film grain makes the picture "alive"), but also of old camera lenses vs modern lenses. But I guess we'd go really off-topic with that. ;)
 
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