In the case of the
NES, it would later degrade to even worse stages. I'm always surprised at the complicated
rituals people come up with when dealing with
failing electronics. I had a really old stereo once and the speakers would occasionally stop working. For some reason, and I don't know how I figured this out, you could get the speakers back on again by fiddling with the function buttons. There were 4 buttons: Radio, Tape, Turntable (I told you it was old) and Aux. If you were listening to the tape, for instance, you would press that button in and then slightly press in a couple of the other buttons and the speakers would
turn on. Listening to a tape while holding buttons in isn't very fun so I figured out that you could depress them a little and then stick
toothpicks into the gap to hold them in place.
Anyway, with my NES we had several ways of dealing with getting a game to start. Cartridge Blowing was a necesary start to any attempt to use the machine. The next problem was that if you put the cartridge in and pressed it down like normal it wouldn't work. The cartridge had to be at just the right height to get a picture. One good way to achieve this height was to stick a second cartridge above the first. Another method was to not actually push the cartridge all the way in and then force it into the slot. The friction from the back of the cartridge would then hold it at a lower height than normal. Of course, after all this as done, one had to be very careful not to bump or move the box. Therefore people who moved the controller around a lot when they played had to be banned. The worst problem of all was that you never knew if a game wasn't working because it was actually broke, you hadn't blown it enough, or you didn't have it at the right height.
Man, Nintendo was a blast!