🚀 go-pugleaf

I haven't had the problem exactly like you described it,
but I did have a home-made (Atari) Basic program which
I wrote to monitor my air conditioner operation. (Yah,
it was in August; even we Italian's don't run our air
conditioners in November.)

After about 3 days, the program just died, and wouldn't
restart.  In fact, READY wouldn't come on, and it wouldn't
boot.

This (mad EE's) solution was to: 1) Open the cartridge
cover, 2) Jam a piece of paper in the interlock, so the
power was restored to the machine, 3) Removed the cover
from the Basic cartridge, so only the printed circuit
card and ROM where there, 4) Set the machine on a book
to encourage convection cooling.

They solved the problem.

I did not look for a minimal subset of all those tricks,
I just wanted to get back on the air.

The machine is a 400, purchased about 6/83.  The cartridge
was new in about '81.

Good luck,
Mars Gralia
Applied Physics Lab
Johns Hopkins University