Unlike in the generation 2 Pokemon games, Yellow version doesn't have a real time clock feature. This means that the batteries in the generation 1 games should last quite a long time. However on some boards, over time a few chips will need to be resoldered or you might need to feed a wire through to one point of a chip to another one. Well that's the case with my copy of Yellow version. However it was also filthy since I spilled soda on it over a decade ago but just got around to cleaning it.
Just look at that filth! 
This article serves as a reminder that if you collect games and want to actually play them, you should clean them often. Same with game consoles as well. I still need to get around to cleaning the other half of the shell and the board fully and also fixing the game itself. But you can see that I did clean up the top shell well.
So remember folks, clean your old tech!