The lockout chip inside the cartridge communicated with the one inside the system, and if the could not establish or maintain their delicate serial communications, the system would reset about twice a second. Two other issues exacerbated this unreliable mechanism. On pressing the power button, if you saw a blinking screen or a solid screen of one color, that meant there was not good contact between the cartridge and connector. If contact was broken, then the game would fail to start or crash. Eventually obtaining and maintaining good contact between the 72 pins of the cartridge and the connector was no longer guaranteed. Back in the day, the push-in-and-down cartridge slot caused stress on the connectors. Using the NES today has one problem, but it is a big one, the gray box (which in enthusiast circles is called the front loader) is terribly unreliable.
While there is something to be said for emulating the games, there is nothing quite like playing on a real system connected to a television screen. This little gray box is the reason why we still play video games today We have not forgotten about it, we still enjoy playing many, many of the approximately 750 unique North American games released during the console's lifespan. I am a real fan of the Nintendo Entertainment System.