I remember watching season 2 of Halt and Catch fire and somebody is playing with an Atari 2600 and it does start and he pulls the cartridge and blows on it. It actually pissed me off. Nobody was blowing on Atari Carts. Those suckers just worked and there was nothing to blow on without getting a screwdriver as the board was normally not exposed.
Weird how later generation rituals gets misapplied.
That and even music tape cassettes often were slid into a door that you had to press closed. And the association must have worked because i recall my friends and i having referred to NES games not as “cartridges” but Nintendo Tapes.
