Vintage Gaming Cleaning Kits
In the days when cartridges ruled the world it seemed as if anyone and everyone put out a cleaning kit to keep your systems in working order. Which was a big selling point made all too easy by the NES and its, more often than not, ability to put on a light show rather than play a game. If there is one thing I believe about retro gaming, it has to be the fact that if you keep your systems and games clean they will last longer and give you much better functional results.
Although I now know the true cause of these glitches, I was still taken in by the cleaning kits propaganda when I was younger. They made promises to keep the blinking NES, or just a black screen on other systems, away forever! Almost every cartridge based video game system had some form of cleaning kit, and although most of the time it worked for just a short while, the fact that it worked at all made them feel like essential hardware.
My first cleaning kit was a Doc’s Fix-a-system, which had what I still feel is a genius idea in the clip on NES cleaner. You simply took any NES game cartridge, clipped the contraption to the front of it and you proceeded to stab the living daylights out of your NES. Doing so cleared unwanted dirt and gave way to a few more minutes of uninterrupted gameplay.
I still love this idea, it still works great!
After that cleaning kit was lost or broken, I’m sure, I purchased a Player’s Edge NES cleaning kit. This one was a stand alone unit with a handle, and everything you needed fit conveniently inside the unit itself. Again you just took the unit and stabbed the living daylights out of your NES and you were good to play for a little while longer.
Years of use on this thing, does it show?
That would be the last cleaning kit I bought for nearly 14 years, until one day at a Salvation Army store I found a Player’s Edge cleaning kit for the SNES. Later, at another Salvation Army, I found an incomplete Doc’s 2000 kit, which brought back a flood of memories of the good old days. Sadly the NES clip was broken, but I decided to take what was left of it and turn it into a cleaning kit inside of an old Gyromite cartridge I had laying around. (Original article: Here)
Same system, only one fits perfectly into the NES so I can shut the lid.
It seems nowadays I go through thrift stores and find cleaning kits for almost every system, and if they’re at a reasonable price I’ll pick them up. Just this year I’ve accrued quite a few system cleaning kits, and although I may not use them I still pick them up when I can.
My current collection of boxed cleaning kits.
As an adult, I know the best way to keep my systems running is to clean both the games and the systems. But it seems a good Q-tip with rubbing alcohol thoroughly rubbed through a game keeps all my systems running well. Admittedly I have had some hiccups with my Sega Genesis, N64 and SNES, but nothing a good game cleaning hasn’t remedied, so far!
Back in the day cleaning kits were pushed in our faces, and as time went on they faded away. I still get nostalgic for cleaning kits and make room for them in my collection. Though they serve no practical purpose to me, as I’ve learned far better ways to keep my systems running, they still connect me to a time when video games were problematic, but so much fun.
Atari Jaguar Review
In 1993, while Nintendo’s Super Nintendo and Sega’s Genesis were duking it out for supremacy, Atari stepped back into the home console market after six years of going silent. With the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, we were told that more “bits” were better and although most of us were children and didn’t even know what a bit was, we knew the bigger the number, the better the system. Atari took an interesting concept and way over estimated their security in an all out war between the big two consoles of that year, creating one of the worst console failures in gaming history.
The SNES and Genesis were both 16-bit systems, the graphics and sound were vastly enhanced over the NES and Master System, but Atari was already hard at work on 32-bit (Panther) and a 64-bit (Jaguar) consoles. Somewhere along the line the Panther was scrapped and the Jaguar pounced into position to be Atari’s comeback that would not only put them back into the home console market, but also on the lips and minds of gamers everywhere. With everything in place, Atari tested the Jaguar in select markets in the United States, obviously things went well as they decided to widen the release and thus the Atari Jaguar was launched!
The Atari Jaguar boasted 64-bits, which was four times that of any console on the market. Atari must have hoped that the larger number would garner gamer’s attention, but sadly it never caught the attention of the game makers. The Atari Jaguar did have big titles such as: DOOM, Wolfenstein 3D, Bubsy and NBA Jam TE, as well as a slew of other great titles for the system, but most of them didn’t look much different than the SNES and Genesis versions. Many gamers felt that they already had a system that would play these games and more, so there was no need to purchase another system, simply based on it’s numerical optimism.
With the lack of game development and gamer support, another nail in the coffin was the Jaguar’s controller. The controller is massive and includes a numerical keypad. The keypad helped you quickly execute commands or other features, without having to cycle through with a D-pad and button combo in a rush. Certain games even came with overlays to tell you exactly which key did what, so you didn’t have to fumble around pressing them all. Overall the controller is comfortable, the keypad is useful, but it just seemed a bit too much.
Original (Left) and Revised (Right) Jaguar Controllers
Atari later decided to give the Jaguar an add-on, which turned out to be yet another shot to the dying Jaguar’s backside. The Jaguar CD was launched in 1995 and although I never owned one, from what I understand it pretty much died on the spot. With a very slim selection of titles for the add-on and the fact that some of them simply refused to work, the Jaguar CD was a massive failure in and of it’s own.
The Atari Jaguar’s roar was reduced to a retreating hiss as in 1996 the system was discontinued, after only selling approximately 200,000 units. To put that to a comparison, Nintendo’s Virtual Boy sold approximately 750,000 units, and the CD-I sold approximately 550,000 units. In the history of gaming consoles, the Jaguar only managed to outsell the Apple-Bandai Pippen.
Although Atari gave up on the Jaguar, it didn’t die. In fact Hasbro snatched up the rights to some Atari properties and in 1999 they released the rights to the Atari Jaguar, giving rights to the fans to develop software for the console. [Hasbro Release] The Jaguar’s casing molds were sold off to a dental imaging company and turned into the Imagin Hot Rod and the game casing was turn into it’s memory pack.
Imagin Hot Rod
With all the Jaguar’s shortcomings of the controller being massive and the games never pushing the technology inside the Jaguar, or perhaps it simply wasn’t all it was marketed as being, the system was and is still a great system to own. The Atari Jaguar is a very easy system to overlook, but there are many titles that are well worth a play through. Today fans try to keep the Jaguar alive, making their own homebrews for the system. I’ve never had a chance to check these games out, but I think its a really cool thing for both the fans making the games as well as Hasbro to let the fans keep the system alive. An idea other companies might want to try. (ahem! Nintendo, I’m coughing at you!)
Being that the Atari Jaguar is somewhat of a rare beast, I’m extremely glad to have found mine. Not only for the price and nostalgia, but simply because I thoroughly enjoy this system and it’s games. Something noteworthy is that inside the box of my Bubsy game I found a receipt dated 1996 from Electronics Boutique (EB Games). I find it fascinating that this game came with a small history of sorts as I didn’t even get my first Jaguar until about a year or two later. Though the Jaguar was but a mere blip on the radar, it still remains and has a strong underground following.
Sam’s Score: Atari Jaguar
Do you believe in fate? Destiny? Serendipity? Well, I do… sometimes. I had just decided to add a new thrift store to my weekly rounds, because on my first trip through they had a few video games. They didn’t have anything I wanted to buy then, but that doesn’t mean that will always be the case. After a few more trips their video game stock was growing, anything from Sega Genesis to a lone PS3 game. They had the games but didn’t have any systems or controllers lying around, at least not that I saw. But one day, on what I thought to be just another browsing trip, I found it sitting there and I knew that I had to buy it!
Just a week prior, a friend and I were discussing a Craigslist ad for an Atari Jaguar, which included 10 games. The ad sounded a lot like my old Atari Jaguar that I lost in an unfairly slanted trade, but I never contacted the seller because they wanted over $200 for the lot. During the next week, for some odd reason, I heard a lot about Atari Jaguars, so I took it upon myself to do some research on them, as well as their prices online. By the end of the week all the Atari Jaguar talk had me missing my old system pretty badly, so I was even more amazed when I walked into that store and found it.
It took me a few seconds to calm down and focus on anything other than the price tag, but eventually I went into hurry up and grab it mode. The system came with one controller, both of which were caked in dirt. Sitting on the shelf beside them were five games, which I nearly missed entirely in my euphoria. After collecting the system and games, I looked pretty hard but sadly there were no hookups anywhere to be found.
Given how dirty the system was and the fact the Atari Jaguar has an open game connector, I still felt that it was worth a chance to buy it anyway. After I collected my thoughts, I took everything to the register and watched as the tiny amounts rang up to a very decent total. I asked if they had a return policy, luckily they did, but even so I wouldn’t want to return anything unless I absolutely had to (like the system being dead — gulp!).
Throughout the rest of the day, while I continued to game hunt, the system sat in the bag but my mind couldn’t stop thinking about the score, and wondering if the system even worked. This also brought on the hope I would run across more games, controllers or even the official hookups for this thing. With no such luck, I knew I had to do some research to see what power supply I could use, so that I didn’t create the reason why I would need to return it to the store, and I found that I already had one!
The very first thing I did was break out the cleaning wipes and gave the system a much deserved bath. The dirt came off with ease as the wipe turned from white to a sickly, dark brown color. At first I only cleaned half of the system so I could take a comparative pic (seen below), but once it was done, the system looked brand new! I assume everything went together, but I’m not sure why the games were so clean and the system and controller were so dirty.
Left: Dirty! - Right: Clean!
After I was confident that I had the right power supply, I hooked everything up and pushed the power button… nothing! My heart sank and I immediately started thinking about how I would return the system, but I wanted to keep the controller and knew I would keep the games. I sat there for a moment, wiggling the power supply in hopes that it may spring to life and all I would need to do was solder something back together, no life what so ever.
I sat there for a moment and the knowledge of my old Atari Jaguar returned to me. IT NEEDS A GAME!, I thought to myself, so I picked up a game and firmly planted it into the system. I wasn’t prepared to see another lack of life in this thing, so I pushed the button and hoped for the best. Success! The system lit up and the Jaguar logo came roaring on to the screen (literally, it roars at you), needless to say I was extremely happy.
The Atari Jaguar is a relatively rare system, which I will be discussing in my forthcoming Jaguar review. Before I found this one, the last Atari Jaguar I had seen was my own. Throughout my many thrift store finds, I’ve never come across anything related to the Jaguar, not even in Disc Replay, which may not even carry them. The 5 games I got were: Tempest 2000 (complete in box), Iron Soldier (complete in box), Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales (complete in box), Raiden and Doom. Inside Bubsy’s box I found an interesting receipt, which I will also be discussing in the review. So far everything works great, and I hope it continues that way because I’ve quickly grown attached to this system and it’s games.
System -$5
Games -$2 each
