So I had to change the batteries on one of my Gen 1's tonight, the ones in them seem to have burned out uber quickly. So I opened the cover, and noticed that there seems to be a dark, blackish spot on the circuit board around the left battery spot, particularly around one end of the battery prong. It isn't evident elsewhere, I'm wondering what the heck it is... battery leakage maybe? =\ It's a used Tama, and this is only its second set of batteries (which seem to have worn out before my others, which have been running for longer), so I'm not really sure. It looks like a blottish type pattern though, a spill of some sort.
Anyways, this prompted me to check one of my other Tamas, to see if it was abnormal. I opened my original Gen 1 up (which was partially dipped in our pool a while back). I didn't see any abnormal spots. Interestingly enough though, I noticed the boards look completely different. My original, water-logged Tama's circuit board had very spaced, squarsh, right-angled wire paths. My used one looked a lot more like a modern motherboard, with tightly-packed stripes of wires which followed diagonal curves (45 degree angles rather than 90), as well as short lines with circular nodes on either end, like a point A to point B line.
A strange observation. Haven't checked any of my other pets, but seems really weird that the two boards are utterly different. Any thoughts? I think I did take my original apart at one point to try and have it repaired, so it's possible that it might've been put back incorrectly, or part of it isn't in the case.
Anyways, the other interesting thing was that I tried putting some batteries in my original out of curiousity, to see if by some chance it would work. Turns out... it does! The tune of the beep seemed a little different, and perhaps a bit louder than I expected (mind you believe my used Gen 1 is a little on the quiet side, for whatever reason). The point is, it worked. I could tell by the sequence of the beeps, what buttons beeped when used in what order. It essentially appears to be alive and well, aside from the LCD being completely blank.
Tbh, I'm not really sure why I'm making this post. The screen apparently was the main thing damaged by water was the screen, not the entire Tamagotchi. If somehow I could fix or replace the LCD though, my original Tama should work just like it used to! Very nostalgic. Guess I'm in a nostalgic mood tonight. Guess I just wanted to share this and get some thoughts from Tamagotchi-minded people.
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