It's not out of the ordinary to find common, off-the-shelf parts in a wide range of consumer electronics, but a recent discovery by Twitter user Jan Henrik has us well and truly puzzled.
Upon cracking open a Medical Imaging Electronics (MiE for short) ECG Trigger Unit, Henrik discovered that the machine's 240x160 pixel display was in fact a Game Boy Advance SP screen - and as you can see from the images below, we're not talking about MIE simply using the same Sharp-made LCD panel as Nintendo - this is an actual Game Boy Advance display, ripped from a GBA SP unit with the plastic casing still intact and then screwed into the casing of the ECG Trigger Unit.
https://twitter.com/JanHenrikH/status/910754596422868992
Perhaps earlier revisions of the unit had different screens, and once the supply chain dried up MiE was forced to source the next best thing? You'd think there would have been more sensible approaches available rather than buying up a job lot of GBA SPs to take them apart, but whatever the reason, at least we have this odd piece of equipment to stare blankly at in 2017. Nintendo's magic is hiding everywhere.
Thanks to Gary Parker for the tip!
Comments (28)
Not sure what to say to that... At least we have an idea of what happened to the Gameboy SPs!
I should go to the doctor more. Maybe I'll find a Gamecube in the tongue depressor container.
Maybe someone can figure out how it works.
I want to play Metroid Fusion on that.
That headline. Made my heart skip a beat.
Hate to be a cynic but it kinda sounds bogus to me.
It's all becoming so clear now. The cardiogram' designer put countless hours into Trauma Team: Stat in the ER, only to lose his game save and his mind after a 40 hour Quadruple bypass transplant mesh reduction. 😔 A moment of silence please. They say he died of a broken heart.
there is a pic of how the Gameboy is connected is his tweet.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKOtBcPW0AAHvdi?format=jpg
This is horrible. I can't imagine how many Game Boy Advance SPs are being destroyed for this. They're a piece of gaming history, and they're going to get scarcer and scarcer over time already. They don't need any help with that
If you look at his other pics, he took the screen out, and found the whole unit is run with a GBA CPU as well. Weird.
@ALinkttPresent I just want to point out that this is literally saving people's lives with old game components.
Kinda like how the Atari Jaguar's case mold ended up as a dental camera!
http://www.tested.com/art/makers/457446-10-inventive-new-uses-obsolete-technology/item/atari-jaguar-dental-camera/
@ALinkttPresent while I understand your thoughts, it's probably not many systems out of the many millions that were made. The GBA SP will be preserved for many years without this affecting it. It wouldn't surprise me if this was unsold stock, perhaps deemed unsellable to to defects or damage. There was a bunch of damaged new-old-stock Famicoms found a couple of years back.
Don't they know you can buy the screens on AliExpress for $50?
No wonder where all the used GBA SPs went...
Ironically, I use an old Medical CRT monitor for my retro consoles. I do always wonder how many colonoscopies were viewed on that screen!
And actually, the question everyone should be asking... is this the AGS-001 or AGS-101 screen?!
At the time this would have been a very cost effective way of getting screen, driver, and light (I think this had the bottom lighting) in smaller quarantines.
I feel like the bigger mystery is why this guy decided to find out what's inside his Medical Imaging Electronics ECG Trigger Unit.
Weird.
wth?
@GravyThief Pearl Blue shell, that's a cannibalized 101 there. Also that other image linked in the comments almost looks like they got the board in there too and hotwired their medical software to it.
Ha, jury rigging at it's finest
What has me rolling my eyes is that electronics are far more expensive in the medical field. Either Nintendo's stuff is THAT high quality, or someone is looking to pinch a few pennies where someone's life may be on the line. I'd prefer the former.
Cheapest way of getting hold of a fully functional chipset most likely.
Also likely to break a couple laws.
@tanookisuit Man, those poor GBAs. There is NOS somewhere of those 101s getting cannibalized.
Dr Frankentendo will see you now.
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