…my game gear did fine with the external rechargeable battery pack, which was admittedly cumbersome but wasn’t to extend battery life so much as it was to save the expense of buying batteries, but even using AAs i never had a problem with them not lasting through a full play session…
…no, cartridges hadn’t yet been invented for my first console and my first NES was actually the mid-nineties redesign, so i never experienced blowing dust off the contacts…
…i did get to play with ROM-swap developer cartridges on my atari 2600, though…