Anyone who thinks that pregnancy tests can only show whether or not you are pregnant is wrong. The technology in the self-tests turns out to be so advanced that the disposable device is capable of playing videos and possibly even classic video games.
Twitterer discovered this Phone. The American bought a duo-pack of digital pregnancy tests for seven dollars and decided to completely disassemble the devices to investigate the technology inside.
I saw a tweet recently that I wanted to confirm. Sadly I can’t find it right now, but it was about digital pregnancy tests.
So, I went out and grabbed a 2-pack for 7 dollars: let’s tear it down! pic.twitter.com/1a0drwi7N5– foone (@Foone) September 4, 2020
Soon the devices turned out to be a lot more advanced than he could have imagined. The tests not only contain a small battery, but also a processor, RAM memory and an LCD screen. Parts that are also used in smartphones, tablets and computers. A pregnancy test is actually a kind of mini PC.
Rickrolled
The processor that Foone discovered in the pregnancy test also turns out to be surprisingly advanced. According to Foone, the chip used is even faster than the processor used in IBM’s very first Personal Computer, released in 1981. And that in a device that you pee over and throw away.
Although the chip is not programmable, Foone has managed to display information other than just a test result on the screen, such as the video clip of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.
I’m still playing with my replacement OLED display for the Equate pregnancy tester.
I was worried I wouldn’t have enough bandwidth to do real time updates, but it turns out that 128×32 at 1bpp doesn’t take much bandwidth at all. pic.twitter.com/zOzl4eHyHm– foone (@Foone) September 5, 2020
The game classic DOOM also got Foone working on the device. Even if it is only a video of the game and not the game itself.
and it can’t yet run doom. That’s going to be way tricky, even cheating and having a modern desktop computer connected to it… but I CAN play back a doom video on it, which is kinda close?
(Using a different dithering method here so that you can see anything: doom is dark) pic.twitter.com/BhJLYkQlXp– foone (@Foone) September 5, 2020
How does a pregnancy test work?
With all the technology used in pregnancy tests today, you would almost believe that the entire testing process is also digital. But that’s not entirely true. There is still a paper strip in the self-tests. If that strip gets wet, the battery will activate and the test will turn on.
The device then uses three LED lights and two photo sensors to read the lines on the strip and thus determine the test result. The processor and memory then ensure that the hard-to-read dashes appear on the screen as a clear result: ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant’.
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