[TAMAmaybeth]

What features has an original tamagotchi?[I mean a tamagotchi from 1997]

How do you pause it?

characters?

Growth?

anything special that you have to pay attention?

[hwd45]

The original Tamagotchi came in two 'generations', P1 and P2, each with different characters and a different game.
There's not official way to pause the Tamagotchi, but if you try and set the time using A+C on the clock screen, it pauses it.
The growth pattern depends on how many 'care misses' you make and how many happy/ hunger hearts fall. If you want the best Tamagotchi you must always be sure not to let its hearts drop below 3.
There's not much special to pay attention to, to be honest, except for the adult character- if it's a Maskutchi or Zuccitchi it can evolve into a secret character, if given the correct level of care.

The characters are as follows:
P1-
Babytchi
Marutchi
Tamatchi
Kuchitamatchi
Mametchi
Ginjirotchi
Maskutchi
Kuchipatchi
Nyorotchi
Tarakotchi
Bill (Secret character) or Oyajitchi (Secret character, only on Japanese versions)

P2-
Shirobabytchi
Tonmarutchi
Tongaritchi
Hashitamatchi
Mimitchi
Pochitchi or Nyatchi (Only on some Japanese versions)
Zuccitchi
Hashizotchi
Takotchi
Kusatchi
Zatchi (Secret character) or Sekitoritchi (Secret character, only on some Japanese versions) or Charitchi (Secret character, only on some Japanese versions)

[TAMAmaybeth]

I was looking around for older tamas when I found this:

It's for tamagotchi v2. But what does it mean by generation 1/2?

[hwd45]

The generation of the Tamagotchi, in this case, refers to how many Tamagotchis have been running. The first Tamagotchi is 1st generation, then when it gives birth the baby is 2nd generation. This chart is a little inaccurate since 1st generation isn't only 1st generation, it's all odd generations (i.e. 1,3,5,7,9...) and the 2nd generation bit should say 'even generation' (i.e. 2,4,6,8,10...).

[binary]

A newly-hatched baby is quite needy. She'll call for attention quite often. As she grows up day by day, she'll get less needy. However, after about 14 days old she'll start getting needier again. By age 21 days she'll be calling for attention every few minutes.

[TAMAmaybeth]

What are even and odd? I don't quite get those generation numbers... what does it matter?

[hwd45]

'Even' numbers are numbers that can be divided by two (0,2,4,6,8,10...)
'Odd' numbers are not divisible by two (1,3,5,7,9...)

You get different Tamagotchis depending on whether your Tamagotchi's Generation number is an odd or even number.