(UFRGS -1998)My house is haunted by the screams of

(UFRGS - 1998) 

My house is haunted by the screams of slow digital death. I'm referring to the last gasps of the Tamagotchi, a "digital craze" that infected my kids like chicken pox last spring.

Since the day they were born, I have tried to ²give my children the right toys. So when I first read about Tamagotchis, I felt here was a toy that would appeal to my daughters. In case you are childless or an alien from outer space and managed to avoid this craze, the Tamagotchi is a Keychain-size plastic egg that houses a small LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) in which "lives" a creature that you nurture by pushing ¹a variety of buttons.

It was love at first beep for my kids. The silicon pets completely satisfied their "mothering needs". The Tamagotchi had to be fed, played with and even changed regularly. A "normal" digital pet lives for a few weeks, at which point it's "called back to the home planet", according to the instruction book. Anyway, the thing "dies", so you have to ³hit the reset button and ⁴grow another one. The cycle repeats endlessly period before losing interest. But the Tamagotchis, bless their little chips, keep on beeping, beeping, always beeping.

A expressão "a variety of buttons" (ref.1) significa o mesmo que: