Burnishing A Cartridge Connector With A Pencil Eraser To Ensure A Solid Connection
| Field | 1970s and 1980s era Home Computers |
| Went Obsolete | Mass Storage Devices (Floppies/Hard Drives became cheaper and more reliable. |
| Made Obsolete By | Home PCs? that had mass storage devices built in |
| Knowledge Assumed | How to use a pencil eraser |
| When useful | To clean contacts on computer memory |
Sometimes inserting a cartridge into a computer or home video game machine resulted in a flaky connection. Burnishing the connectors entailed turning the cartridge upside down and rubbing a pencil eraser across the metal contacts, which usually resulted in a clean connection the next time the cartridge was inserted into the device. This was necessary because cartridges were frequently changed, resulting in a lot of 'wear and tear' that the basic cartridge mechanism was not designed for, having tolerance for only a relatively low number of insertions and removals.
This was commonly used by users of late 1970s/early 1980s personal computers, especially the TRS-80 Color Computer, TI99?/4a, and Atari 400/800.
This method still works well on seemingly non functional SIM cards for cell phones.
This method is still in use to clean the contacts of laptop and desktop computer memory, to solve a common boot failure.
Addendum: Doing this is not recommended as the eraser can wear away the gold plating on the contacts and expose the copper, which will then oxidize and prevent a good electrical contact. The purpose of the gold plating on the contacts is to prevent oxidization and thereby prevent the need for this procedure to be performed. However, in some cases, frequent insertion/removal of a cartridge can cause the gold plating to be worn away as well, so it's a "Lose/Lose" situation. Instead, one should use 98 percent isopropyl alchohol and a non-linting Q-Tip to clean contacts as this will perform the same function, but without wearing away more of the gold plating.