Took on a bit of a restoration project with a classic P1.

For those of you who’ve known me since the old Tama-Zone days, you might be familiar with the blue, pink and yellow Tamagotchi. I ran that for years until the buttons stopped working and the shell began to yellow. The back panel is missing the two insert slips at the bottom, so instead of screwing it on, I’d have to tape it on. Despite all the damage, it still ran.

I picked up this much cleaner and nicer one on eBay not long ago for cheap. The seller assured me that it still worked perfectly, and yeah, it did. What he didn’t tell me was that the LCD screen was malfunctioning; half the pixels were fading, the screen had a weird scratch on the front, there were large, obvious shadows around the dark pixels.

I took it apart to find out what was wrong with the screen, but I couldn’t get it working. Then I figured I could salvage parts from older Tamagotchis to make it work. So I used the original blue’s LCD, and the green Tamagotchi’s screen, which was in better condition than either of the blue ones. Screwed it together, popped the batteries in, performed the screen and buttons test, and it was running like new. It didn’t come with the ball chain, so the one in the first photo is actually borrowed from my Angelgotchi.

I’m thinking of running it for old time’s sake, but I should probably get a case to carry it in. Can’t let this one yellow like the old one did.

Here are some pictures of the P1 running alongside my P2 from my 18th birthday hatch. Thanks for everything.