Clock

Pokémon Gold and Silver cartridges hide a tiny real-time clock chip apart from the save battery, so game time ticks even when the system is off. That drains the battery far faster than other Pokémon games, and once it dies, the clock freezes forever at that moment.

In 19th-century Paris, all city clocks were synchronized via compressed air. Around 300km of underground pipes carried minute-by-minute pressure pulses from a central master clock to over 4,000 clocks. When the 1910 Paris flood hit, every clock in the city froze at 10:53 AM.