seems all switch carts are suseptable to bit rot in the future.

[Nes Freak 566]

i was doing a little research on  if switch carts were  mask rom based or nand based.  unfortunately there nand based which means bit rot will kill off these game in the future.  the good news is that wont be for another 20 years cause it uses something called XtraRom which is better at retaining information than regular flash.  and by then hackers im sure will have figured out how to reprogram  a switch game cart by then.  but being flashed based i think would cause issues if the game was removed improperly.

 

heres the topic

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/270216-nintendo-switch-cartridge-eprom-or-maskrom/

 

correctly me if im wrong about the nand  but i think this was a stupid move by nintendo.  collectors are screwed if hackers cant reprogram the cart

[docile tapeworm 3,672]

fuck. i was starting a small (physical) switch collection.... wtf.

[Sumez 2,292]

2 hours ago, Nes Freak said:

but being flashed based i think would cause issues if the game was removed improperly

Only if it's flashable via contacts that are actually connected to the Switch, and if the Switch on top of that doesn't have protection against something like this.
Sounds like a very unlikely scenario that would have already been exposed if true.

[ICrappedMyPants 301]

41 minutes ago, skinnygrinny said:

fuck. i was starting a small (physical) switch collection.... wtf.

I’ve bought like 30 games this year.

[OptOut 8,001]

Everything in our collections is susceptible to bit rot, disc rot, leaking caps, corrosion, and the general wear and tear of time. It's all going to be gone someday, one way or another.

It's for each of us to decide how we feel about this, and the strategies we put in place to mediate and mitigate it. Certainly many of the things we own will outlast ourselves, many will not.

But, as the years roll by, solutions for keeping these games alive and the experiences they provide just keep getting better and better. From regular emulation, to FPGA systems, flash carts and remakes, good old fashioned modification and maintenance on original hardware, we now have more options than ever to enjoy our hobby indefinitely into the future.

We may not always be playing the same way, and we may lose some precious artifacts along the way, but we're never gonna stop gaming, never gonna stop feeling the way that made us get so crazy about these plastic squares in the first place! 

[fox 1,458]

Welp, good thing I'm mostly digital

[Quest4Nes 376]

1 hour ago, fox said:

Welp, good thing I'm mostly digital

well physical will probably out last that. so you probably are worse off overall in the long run

[Nes Freak 566]

2 hours ago, OptOut said:

Everything in our collections is susceptible to bit rot, disc rot, leaking caps, corrosion, and the general wear and tear of time. It's all going to be gone someday, one way or another.

It's for each of us to decide how we feel about this, and the strategies we put in place to mediate and mitigate it. Certainly many of the things we own will outlast ourselves, many will not.

But, as the years roll by, solutions for keeping these games alive and the experiences they provide just keep getting better and better. From regular emulation, to FPGA systems, flash carts and remakes, good old fashioned modification and maintenance on original hardware, we now have more options than ever to enjoy our hobby indefinitely into the future.

We may not always be playing the same way, and we may lose some precious artifacts along the way, but we're never gonna stop gaming, never gonna stop feeling the way that made us get so crazy about these plastic squares in the first place! 

mask roms are not susceptible to bit rot cause of how there made  as long as there handled well  they should out last us.  yes leaky caps is an issue  those can be replaced  laser diodes go out  and discs are limited on time,  LCD cant rot too but theoretically a pressed dvd and or cd  sould last a life time  as long as there was no defect in the process of making them .  but so far ive only seen disc rot on poorly manufactured saturn games (more of an issue in the EU for some reason)  i have 1000 movies and 250 games on disc.  so far ive only had one movie fail caused by layer separation.

 

so no.  nothing last forever.  thats why its important to keep a back up digitally.   

[Maartenvdz 10]

This is unfortunate. 
 

bit rot is the reason why I have never collected disc based games and stopped after the 16-bit generation.

In the last few years I have also been building up a switch collection, but will stop doing so if the games only last 20 or so years. 

Does anyone know how high the likelihood is that we will be able to re-flash the carts in the future, once the encryption has been hacked or bypassed ? And how well would re-flashing actually work ?

Edited March 25, 2020 by Maartenvdz

[Sumez 2,292]

Any platform is going to be hacked/compromised in the future.

[Romiked2689 117]

So what your saying is my nes carts were built better then my switch carts? 

[Nes Freak 566]

31 minutes ago, Romiked2689 said:

So what your saying is my nes carts were built better then my switch carts? 

Actually  nand is the same as what you would find on a flash drive or an SD card.  its erasable or reprogram able.  but in the case of a switch game it might be read only so it might not be reprogramable at all with out removing the chip from the board.  a mask rom is done by over volting  the chip with the program data  and all those tiny melted holes is how the game is read in 1s and 0s (1s being the holes)  it means its permanent.  nand is just copying the file  and its held by a charge.  wile the chip doesnt fail the charge eventually will fade away.  thus the term bit rot.  and tbh they say 20 years  but ive seen eeproms eproms last 30 and 40 years (which is very similar to flash)  ive heard  different  between 25 to 50 years from other sources.  tbh i dont know if any one knows for sure cause the technology hasn't been around long enough. it also depends in enviroment.  so switch games could last 50 years.  20 years its just a estimate. 

 

yes nes games are better built.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Nes Freak

[Nes Freak 566]

3 hours ago, Maartenvdz said:

This is unfortunate. 
 

bit rot is the reason why I have never collected disc based games and stopped after the 16-bit generation.

In the last few years I have also been building up a switch collection, but will stop doing so if the games only last 20 or so years. 

Does anyone know how high the likelihood is that we will be able to re-flash the carts in the future, once the encryption has been hacked or bypassed ? And how well would re-flashing actually work ?

indeed it is.  they say 20 years  but ive seen eeproms eproms last 30 and 40 years (which is very similar to flash)  ive heard  different  between 25 to 50 years from other sources. so they could last 50 years but 20 years is just an estimate.

[a3quit4s 3,359]

Aren’t they like flash drives so the time being 20 years really built on how much you read/write on them? If you play a game when you get it for a month and then put it in the case and never play it again you haven’t even come close to the read/write cycles so if you try to play it again in 40 years it will be fine?

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by a3quit4s

[Sumez 2,292]

I don't know the technical details, but I believe that's a different thing entirely. Most flash memory has a very hard limit to how many times you can rewrite the data. It's not a question of wear a tear, but a fairly well defined cap IIRC. And once you use up that amount, you'll still be able to read the data just fine.

[spacepup 2,093]

To be honest, the last thing I'm concerned about right now is how many decades my switch carts will last.  I mean, I understand the concern, but also, if these things last a solid 20 years, that's good enough for me.  It seems a bit unrealistic to expect these products to last forever, as ideal as that would be.  They'll probably last longer anyway, so it's just not something I'm going to worry about at all.

[LeatherRebel5150 915]

I don't think it's anything to be concerned about. Those batteries in NES carts were supposedly rated for what 5 years originally. I  have tons of games with original batteries still going.

[Memblers 19]

If you've heard of quantum tunneling effect, from quantum physics, that is what allows Flash and EPROM to be programmable, and the reason for the bit rot.  A cell that stores a bit of memory is electrically not connected to anything.  When programming, the electrons are more energized than usual, and they are more likely to teleport themselves through that solid barrier.  A bunch of electrons get trapped in that cell.  But we can't keep them there forever, because the way the world works is weird AF, those electrons don't exist at a particular point, but rather a probability cloud.  It could be in the cell, it could be leaving the galaxy at light speed, it's just more likely to be nearby.  But being anywhere outside that cell is enough for data to be lost, once enough electrons escape.

So, that's why Flash and EPROM technology works.  I expect there are going to be tons of embedded devices that won't work in the future, once the factory-programmed firmware is corrupted.

[docile tapeworm 3,672]

22 minutes ago, Memblers said:

If you've heard of quantum tunneling effect, from quantum physics, that is what allows Flash and EPROM to be programmable, and the reason for the bit rot.  A cell that stores a bit of memory is electrically not connected to anything.  When programming, the electrons are more energized than usual, and they are more likely to teleport themselves through that solid barrier.  A bunch of electrons get trapped in that cell.  But we can't keep them there forever, because the way the world works is weird AF, those electrons don't exist at a particular point, but rather a probability cloud.  It could be in the cell, it could be leaving the galaxy at light speed, it's just more likely to be nearby.  But being anywhere outside that cell is enough for data to be lost, once enough electrons escape.

So, that's why Flash and EPROM technology works.  I expect there are going to be tons of embedded devices that won't work in the future, once the factory-programmed firmware is corrupted.

im no genius by far but that quantum physics stuff..... *whistles and waves hand over head*

[Strange 1,642]

Aren’t DS carts similar? Will be interesting to see how well/if they hold up between now and 2030-40.

[Nes Freak 566]

9 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Aren’t they like flash drives so the time being 20 years really built on how much you read/write on them? If you play a game when you get it for a month and then put it in the case and never play it again you haven’t even come close to the read/write cycles so if you try to play it again in 40 years it will be fine?

 

that physical wear  and that for write only.  so nand had an average or 100,000 writes today  i think.  it varies.

[Nes Freak 566]

21 minutes ago, The Strangest said:

Aren’t DS carts similar? Will be interesting to see how well/if they hold up between now and 2030-40.

ds and 3ds i believe are mask based.  but the save files are nand or nor based

[Nes Freak 566]

3 hours ago, Memblers said:

If you've heard of quantum tunneling effect, from quantum physics, that is what allows Flash and EPROM to be programmable, and the reason for the bit rot.  A cell that stores a bit of memory is electrically not connected to anything.  When programming, the electrons are more energized than usual, and they are more likely to teleport themselves through that solid barrier.  A bunch of electrons get trapped in that cell.  But we can't keep them there forever, because the way the world works is weird AF, those electrons don't exist at a particular point, but rather a probability cloud.  It could be in the cell, it could be leaving the galaxy at light speed, it's just more likely to be nearby.  But being anywhere outside that cell is enough for data to be lost, once enough electrons escape.

So, that's why Flash and EPROM technology works.  I expect there are going to be tons of embedded devices that won't work in the future, once the factory-programmed firmware is corrupted.

which basically means any device with an upgradable firmware should be refashed every15 years or so.  or it will brick.  3ds, dsi, ps3, xbox 360, psp, ps vita etc.

[Memblers 19]

3 hours ago, Nes Freak said:

which basically means any device with an upgradable firmware should be refashed every15 years or so.  or it will brick.  3ds, dsi, ps3, xbox 360, psp, ps vita etc.

That would help.  It totally depends on the design, it's also common for devices to have factory calibrations, serial numbers, decryption keys, a portion of the firmware, a lot of stuff stored in flash that isn't meant to be upgradable.  It's also common, but not universal, for there to be a "bootloader" portion of memory that is untouched by firmware upgrades.  150 years from now, if somebody wants to restore a 2020 automobile, they might find themselves having to reflash 50 microcontrollers all throughout the system, assuming they still have the code/data to put on it.  By that time NES systems and carts (at least the licensed ones) will still work, at the most one would only have to replace capacitors and clean the connectors.

Edited March 26, 2020 by Memblers

[OptOut 8,001]

Wow, @Memblers, I don't know enough to know if all that what you were saying is true, but whatever it is you're smoking PLEASE can I have some, lol!