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deusrex_ t1_iuajegk wrote

Reply to comment by corey_m_snow in Eli5 why do pregnancy testers not have a yes or no indication on the screen instead of the symbols and then matching them? by googleimages69420

I'm pretty sure the digital ones work exactly the same way, and use a sensor to look at the stripe to see if it changed and just print on the screen the result of the strip.

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Raisinhat t1_iub1qv7 wrote

Spoiler alert: that is exactly how they work

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hypermog t1_iub84r0 wrote

I see in one of those tweets that the CPU in this pregnancy test is faster than my family’s first personal computer

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nerdguy1138 t1_iub94r2 wrote

And it can run doom!

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arcosapphire t1_iubxfw3 wrote

Well, the one in the teardown thread specifically can't.

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Exist50 t1_iubyebv wrote

IIRC, that guy just replaced the internals with ones that could run Doom, sadly.

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kasteen t1_iuc0izz wrote

>As Turing explains, the test's "existing CPU can't be reprogrammed and the existing LCD can only show 4 things, so I had to replace both to make any changes. And the current version doesn't even fit into the shell! (although I'm certain it will when complete)."

It isn't running on the hardware from the pregnancy test at all. It's just a computer that may or may not fit inside of the test.

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arcosapphire t1_iubxe0l wrote

That thread was super cool. Is there a subreddit for "how they work" kinds of things like this? I mean obviously this person does stuff like that on Twitter, but I have always hated Twitter's format and never know how to navigate things properly. (Plus now it's a total shitshow with the recent corporate drama.)

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TurnstileT t1_iuasycb wrote

That sounds.. very unnecessary and wasteful to manufactory disposable electronics for that purpose.

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leahlisbeth t1_iub1bh8 wrote

I took one apart once, I can confirm this is exactly how they work

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colimar t1_iuazqsg wrote

But can run doom

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julie78787 t1_iub2zsp wrote

A lot of smaller microcontrollers have all the hardware needed to run old text-only games. Often all that's needed to interface to an old serial terminal is the voltage converters.

I am not going to program a used pregnancy test to play doom or moria or any other text-only game.

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