Not sure this is the best place to ask but I'm hoping someone here might have some answers. I have an original circa 1997 Tamagotchi (known as a P1 I think) that has been kicking around in a drawer for over 20 years with some giga pets and 1st generation digimon and thought it'd be fun to put new batteries in it just for kicks. I ordered some LR44 batteries but when I put them in the Tamagotchi I get nothing, no power. I've done some troubleshooting already and it doesn't appear to be an issue with the contacts since I can read 3V across the solder joints for the battery on the front (screen-facing) side of the board. The only thing I noticed that stood out is there is a spot for a component (again, on the front side) which isn't used, but that could be intentional (not that uncommon). I neglected to take pictures the last time I had it disassembled, but I can post some if anyone is interested since I'll be taking it apart again to poke around some more. Two of the digimon I've tried work fine so I don't think it's due to how they were stored (those even had batteries in them still while the Tama did not).
I realize this effort is probably in vain so I don't have high expectations, but it would be cool to figure out what is busted and if it's simple enough, repair it. To save myself the time spent trying to figure out everything myself, I've been trying to find any technical info I can online but it's pretty scant, especially with there being so many different versions out there. What I have found:
The board shown in this video disassembly looks identical to the one I have. At 2:53 you can see an unused spot for a component which I believe is the same as on mine. This further convinces me that this is not the issue.
Thanks to this site I was able to track down a data sheet for the CPU.
This site shows what I believe is a block diagram of the circuit, even though the other pictures show a newer model.
While researching I stumbled on one of Natalie Silvanovich's videos on hacking Tamas and she mentioned getting some answers here, so I thought I'd reach out to this community as well.
Thanks for reading!
I realize this effort is probably in vain so I don't have high expectations, but it would be cool to figure out what is busted and if it's simple enough, repair it. To save myself the time spent trying to figure out everything myself, I've been trying to find any technical info I can online but it's pretty scant, especially with there being so many different versions out there. What I have found:
The board shown in this video disassembly looks identical to the one I have. At 2:53 you can see an unused spot for a component which I believe is the same as on mine. This further convinces me that this is not the issue.
Thanks to this site I was able to track down a data sheet for the CPU.
This site shows what I believe is a block diagram of the circuit, even though the other pictures show a newer model.
While researching I stumbled on one of Natalie Silvanovich's videos on hacking Tamas and she mentioned getting some answers here, so I thought I'd reach out to this community as well.
Thanks for reading!
