Question about blackened edge connectors...

My Asteroids Deluxe has been having trouble with its edge connector since I
bought it. Occasionally it will fail to boot up, at which point I open up
the machine and wiggle the edge connector, then power up the machine and it
seems to solve the problem. I'd always assumed that maybe there was some
oxidation building up on the tabs which needed to be scraped off by wiggling
the edge connector, but I didn't worry about it much because I knew the
"fix" and it didn't happen very often.

Well, it happened again, and this time wiggling the edge connector didn't
work. This time I ended up taking the board out and took a good look at it,
and the topmost tab on the PCB board (the one that connects to GND, I
think - I didn't have my meter or my pinouts handy) was blackened, and had
peeled off the PCB a little bit. I took a little sandpaper and cleaned off
the black stuff, and the game works again, but now I'm concerned that
there's a more serious problem that I should try to solve instead of just
ignoring it.

I dimly recall that someone else had a problem like this a few months ago
with their Asteroids, but I can't seem to find it in the archives. Is this a
common problem with these PCBs? The game seems to work fine otherwise, but
if someone can suggest a solution, I'd be much obliged.

Thanks,

    Drew

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Received on Wed Aug 22 19:12:39 2001