I encountered my first keychain/pocket virtual pet in the summer of 1997, whilst doing a little back-to-school shopping with my mother and my sibling. We were in a shoe store of an outlet mall, waiting in line to check out and we saw these little red gadgets in plastic shell packaging, with the words Electronic Pocket Pals at the top of the cardboard insert (which was made to look like the back pocket to a pair of pale denim jeans).
Now, my sibling and I have always been fond of pets and, since our folks were not keen on video game systems and we didn't have any in the house (no, not even a Gameboy, though we had seen our cousin's), we were desperate for something game-like. Our eyes went wide and we immediately turned to gaze hopefully at our mother.
The Electronic Pocket Pals were pretty darned cheap (i wanna say less than $10USD?), my sibling and I had been very well-behaved during the shopping trip, and it would give us something to do on the long drive home, so Mom agreed to get one for each of us.
Once school started, I discovered name-brand Tamagotchis and ya know what?
I still loved my little dino guy. I knew it was a cheap knock-off, as soon as I saw the sleek, complete design of the authentic Tamagotchi and its whimsical packaging, but the dino's buttons were still more responsive, the sounds less squawky (though quite shrill), and the menus were a little easier to understand. Don't get me wrong, the lore behind the Tamagotchis was (and continues to be) very cool, but it all felt a little unnecessary to my 11-year-old self. Like an adult trying to make a simple thing sound way fancier than it was.
The dino buttons were a firm-ish rubber, more wide than tall, made contact with even a fairly light press, and made a beep of confirmation right away, while the Tamagotchi buttons were narrower and taller, likely due to the thickness of the Tamagotchi's plastic shell (body? chassis?), and felt kinda mushy when pressed. Sometimes they'd just squidge under your press but not make contact at the bottom, and I learned that you had to press with the tip of your fingernail in the center of the button to make sure it registered properly (something I still run into with modern Tamagotchis, but less so).
After nearly 30 years, I still have my lil dino guy, but not the packaging so shout-outs to the people who keep sites like Tamenagerie alive,
the beautiful folks on Reddit who get lovely, clear photos, and the
handful of weirdos who kept theirs in the original packaging and are
listing them online (I'd grab one, but I still have mine. Go, experience
the... something. Idk. I loved my lil dino.).
A
buddy of mine helped me gain the courage to finally crack open the
shells of my little pets and take a look at the insides and see if we
can solve the mystery of mushy buttons and faulty feedback, which we'll take a peek at in issue no.2 of That Really Tamas My Gotchis!
