An update: IT LIVES!!
Turns out we misremembered: The clock did NOT indeed have to go blinkety blink on fresh boot. Turns out the unresponsive buttons were caused by the simple fact that their connection was shoddy. A bit of graphite in there and it works like a charm.
Well, "like a charm" is...
Some extra information: Apparently there was information floating about that the type of battery would make a difference. We've thus far attempted with alkaline and silver oxide batteries and neither of them has fixed the issue.
it is my understanding that the connections are solid. She...
Cheers!
A friend of mine got her hands on a Dinkie Dino. She did a clean up procedure and got some new batteries, and the device does start up but freezes in this screen:
Note that none of the time "places" are blinking and the device does not react to any button presses on the front nor the...