Gamer kept his SNES on for 20 years just to keep the game saved

[boarder2k7]

well I live in New England so we get a pretty decent amount of rain and hurricanes

This. Lost power for a week after Sandy.

I don't believe it because if you leave old consoles on like that they will freeze up. So, how did he leave it on without the console freezing in the first week? This is clear bs.

The cart would still be powered though, then to play just reset and the battery will hold you through the blip to keep the save data safe.

[AlTech]

One gamer kept his Super Nintendo on for about 20 yrs, just to keep the game saved. Since his battery on catridge was low, and he wanted to keep his game saved, because saving the game wasn't easy in the past: if your battery was dead, you can say goodbye to your progress. But, he kept his Nintendo on, and he could continue his game just like it was saved. In fact, he turned his SNES off only once, because he moved, and the battery kept the game. What a gamer...

Source: https://www.google.it/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://bgr.com/2015/12/30/super-nintendo-20-years-saved-game/&ved=0ahUKEwiH3bPC44bKAhVLhhoKHbDhCB4QFggbMAA&usg=AFQjCNHBG5ySi-sk3kDOBHUwIVzd-muKpg

This news is like 2 months old.

[Albatross]

Ah, I remember the battery issues like it was yesterday. Happened to me quite a lot. I always just had my pops replace the battery though. :lol:

 

Pretty dedicated of him to keep it running for twenty years though. Is a save file that important for older games?

[Guest Gabbs]

Some of you haven't read the complete article.

This person still had a working battery in it, and he even unplugged it once when he moved.

[MrDynamicMan]

I have experienced at least .. 6 outages in the last 10 years of my life. Not a whole lot, but they happen sometimes.

And this is not including the times when a light bulb died and the power in the house went out for a second.

Ha! You're lucky. In SA we had a bout of 2hr daily loadshedding earlier in the year, and my friends in Zambia have 5-8 outages per day.

[Sauron]

Or a UPS? But I dunno, seems kinda silly for a SNES

 

even then, a ups would have a hard time being in working conditions for 20 years, especially the ones that were available at the time.

[Toddwjp]

This is like a month old news

But this seems pretty.. Like weird news. ReviewTechUSA did a video on this too and he pointed something out I thought too: I don't care how good your powergrid is, but everyone has experience a power outage at least once. so this just seems kinda sketchy

 

well its clear the battery did have some juice in it so it probably could tired over the instances of power outs, 

[Lotus]

I bought an old Ocarina of Time cartridge for N64 that was "bad." I replaced the internal battery with a brand new watch battery and voila, everything works again including saving games.

[LAwLz]

I don't believe it because if you leave old consoles on like that they will freeze up.  So, how did he leave it on without the console freezing in the first week? This is clear bs.

[Citation Needed]

 

Why would they freeze from just being turned on a long time?

[ManWithBeard1990]

Can't be too hard to replace the battery without losing the data. Pretty sure I'd be able to do it.

[LAwLz]

 I've owned the SNES+various models of the genesis.  They usually freeze up after 3 days of being on.  It's not just all the different ones I've had, but all the ones I've seen at friends, relatives, and so on.  Unless, he's had some magical model then I can't believe it from experience.

That's just an anecdote though. I don't think that is enough to disprove his claims. I could not find anything about it being a problem on Google, but I can't find much evidence for him keeping it on for 25 years either.

[KirbyTech]

I actually can't remember ever living through a power outage TBH. Not that they don't happen here, but the last big one I can remember was in 2005 and "only" affected the railway grid (200,000 people stuck in 1,500 trains for three hours in summer heat).

Aside from that, they usually seem to be very localilzed from what the internet has been telling me. Funnily enough, it seems we had a power failure in a few towns adjacent to where I live due to a failure in a distribution station in my town this year, but our town itself didn't actually suffer power outage despite the cause being located here.

Still, 20 years... IDK. Maybe, maybe not. If true, hella cool though, IMO.

We have maybe 5 a year here because power lines are mostly above ground and get knocked down by winter storms.

[alpenwasser]

We have maybe 5 a year here because power lines are mostly above ground and get knocked down by winter storms.

Yeah, here it's a mix of both above and below ground, and occasionally lines are damaged. But we don't get a lot of properly strong storms, so it's not that common AFAIK.

[KirbyTech]

Yeah, here it's a mix of both above and below ground, and occasionally lines are damaged. But we don't get a lot of properly strong storms, so it's not that common AFAIK.

Only in the last 8 or so years have they started to put new lines underground. Our issue is the ones that go from city to city as none of them are underground and they storms hit hard here. Example we had 75km/h winds during the last storm along with 7 hours of freezing rain. That is not too far off an average storm. Over 200k people without power in the province.

[KirbyTech]

He has no legit evidence, but it is common knowledge between game addicts back then.  If you leave your system on for a few days it will freeze up.  My cousin told me it would take 1 night for my Sega to do it back then, but it took 3 days.  Same with my SNES back then.  I've never had a console from back then that could survive an entire week.  Leaving it on for 25 years is highly unlikely, even if it didn't.

Maybe he turned it off then right back on again? Either way seems unlikely.

[KirbyTech]

Maybe, but still that would contradict his claim.  

Sure but it is no different than saying my web server is always up when in reality it has 99.99% up time. 

[Dabombinable]

He has no legit evidence, but it is common knowledge between game addicts back then.  If you leave your system on for a few days it will freeze up.  My cousin told me it would take 1 night for my Sega to do it back then, but it took 3 days.  Same with my SNES back then.  I've never had a console from back then that could survive an entire week.  Leaving it on for 25 years is highly unlikely, even if it didn't.

Original Xbox could be left on for a very long time, depending on any power issues in your area. Though I did find that the fans in them were prone to overheating or seizing with long use.

[GoldSrc]

It's a bit different.  He claimed he never turns it off when every three days he has to.

I can't find anything about the snes freezing every 3 days.

[DeScruff]

He has no legit evidence, but it is common knowledge between game addicts back then.  If you leave your system on for a few days it will freeze up.  My cousin told me it would take 1 night for my Sega to do it back then, but it took 3 days.  Same with my SNES back then.  I've never had a console from back then that could survive an entire week.  Leaving it on for 25 years is highly unlikely, even if it didn't.

I have never heard about this ether: but here I go I'll turn on my Genesis and play some Phantasy Star 4. - Been meaning to actually beat it anyway.

[ApolloX75]

It's experience, and I'm not the only one. Try it. It will freeze before a week.

My SNES does it too at around the two day mark. Mine also overheats when playing Starfox now, can't handle dem sweet 3D grafix anymo!

[JuztBe]

Have I missed some critical information? Why I haven't seen not a single comment about hardware failure? 
In my opinion even if you were using all kind of outside sources to power your system, something would just break in 20 years.

[LAwLz]

Have I missed some critical information? Why I haven't seen not a single comment about hardware failure? 

In my opinion even if you were using all kind of outside sources to power your system, something would just break in 20 years.

You are underestimating how durable those consoles were.

My NES consoles still work as well as the day they were new, and they are like 25 years at this point. They were not powered on for those 25 years though...

[TriviaBeast]

Do you live in Missouri? I remember that shit. It was cold as fuck. I had to live in one room with my family and a fire place just to stay alive.

Yes, I used to. We used wood as well.

[michaelocarroll007]

I actually can't remember ever living through a power outage TBH. Not that they don't happen here, but the last big one I can remember was in 2005 and "only" affected the railway grid (200,000 people stuck in 1,500 trains for three hours in summer heat).

Aside from that, they usually seem to be very localilzed from what the internet has been telling me. Funnily enough, it seems we had a power failure in a few towns adjacent to where I live due to a failure in a distribution station in my town this year, but our town itself didn't actually suffer power outage despite the cause being located here.

Still, 20 years... IDK. Maybe, maybe not. If true, hella cool though, IMO.

Yeah its not likely to go through a major outage but a 2 Second Spike in power that shuts it off over the corse of 20 years is crazy to think it never happened Thunder storms a car hit a pole in the area or a downed wire a tree falling Even just overloading a breaker or having work done on your power at your house would make you have to shut it off. even something as simple as a new light switch, fixture outlet or something. not saying its not possible but feel like it would take some good luck or dedication lol 

[GSTARR]

My ps2 didn't have a memory card when I was a kid....

on another note I can beat the first three levels of Tony Hawk's Underground blindfolded