Fun with medical surplus
A short video about the fun that can be had with an old ultrasound printer.
Hope your June is going swimmingly.
Keep on keeping on.
Comments (50)
I love the little selfie-print in the graphic above.
The image quality is better than I would have thought. I would have loved to see you connect it to a video game console like an Nintendo or a home computer like a Commodore 64.
I did consider showing something along those lines - but getting it set up would have taken a while as all my old computers are packed away and this was just intended to be a quick video. Next time I have a old computer set up, I’ll run off a couple of pictures and show them here in an update.
This video reminds me of almost every Sunday afternoon when I've spent the morning at the MIT Flea Market. Half the fun is taking home something intriguing that cost next-to-nothing, and then seeing if it works. After you get it working, you can begin figuring out what it actually _does._
When i lived at home (ugh years ago!) the town landfill had a "re-use center" and I'd volunteer for my folks to take anything to the dumps just to surf the reuse pile. So much cool stuff that people left, Kodak developer machine, typewriter, and a few Land Cameras are some of the items I remember picking up. My mom was so happy when I finally moved out since I could take my "stuff" with me
I was waiting for the muppets, with the younger moan saying his normal "you should just use your phone!!" with the female muppet (do they have names) then telling him he's a buffoon and maybe people like to do things with equipment other than their phone.
This really makes me think about those pocket zink printers you've reviewed. When I was 14 I'd have ADORED a video printer, for taking screenshots of videogames mostly, but also for moments on TV that could not have been caught without my own VCR. And yet I'd have been dissapointed with a polaroid printer, even if they were as good as what you can get today. Really a shame I missed out on this sorta thing.
Thanks for this! This was a fun video and a neat idea! I had a similar idea and was trying to pair up a smaller thermal label printer I have to a camera a few weeks ago. But it was USB and therefore required a bit too much manual work with taking a photo, importing it, editing it, and then finally printing it. I like the composite video method much better! I've gone ahead and ordered one off eBay (along with some paper) before the droves of crazy people like me snatch them all up after your video goes public. If it doesn't end up working, well at least you've gotten a few pennies from your eBay affiliate link. :-) Cheers!
Yes if you want one and there’s a cheap one - now is the time to buy. They seem pretty robust things. About the only maintenance possible would be to clean the print heads, on the one I have I think it originally came with a sheet to run through the machine - but I don’t have it. Only necessary if there are missing lines.
Good idea or stickers!
I'm genuinely interested in one of those printouts of you!
Perhaps I should start sticking them on postcards.
Hmm, connect a C64 or Spectrum to it for a nice message printer. :D
This would be cool hooked up to an old 8 bit computer with composite out.
I remember seeing BNC cables all the time in computer terminal connections. It had been a while since I'd seen them and then found out last year that they are still around as video camera connections.
common on lots of analog video things, like security cameras. its a pretty good connector for coax generally. its cheap and sturdy.
early 90s, slient had a canon stills video camera that captured to floppy, he wanted to go in to fotokeyrings so we tried to find him a printer. Tried the camera manufacturer, Canon ( who were pushng the " if anyone can canon can" strapline ) without any luck. Think we did find something eventually, but definitely " canon can't " - watching this brought back the memories :)
I think I have some colour film for one like this. I know it's expensive when you can find it. I'll see if I've still got it and what model it is.
In the early 1990s my parents went on a guided tour through the sets of a (then) big TV soap opera. At one point, you could have a photo taken with you and the actors inside the original scenery. This was done using the TV cameras and you got a grayscale image on thermal paper which souspiciously looks like it has been printed on such a printer.
Outstanding video! I am very impressed at the speed (responsiveness) of output and quality of the images. Question: images on thermal paper tend to fade over time. I'm thinking of receipts and old fax machine print-outs. But the kind you are using looks like it's of a much higher quality. Any risk of your snaps fading? Also, I always thought you guys were saying "skiff" because of the superficial resemblance of those containers to the boats. "Dumpster" does sound a bit vulgar!
I think these might well fade as well - or at least change colour, but it’s not something I’d use for the quality The etymology of the word is covered here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_(container)
Excellent!
Do you think it would be better if I cut a bit out of the ‘sockets and buttons’ section to make the video shorter?
Remote socket has the same icon as one of the sockets on the Mega Chonker Cassette Player, but if I remember correctly, you presumed that it's the line level output. The more you know I guess.
You’ll see a brief mention of this in the Patreon comments section for the Philips LGC video too.
I had one of those, but I never got around to playing with it... Really happy to see it in action! (BTW, there's a small 50Hz hum on your audio, perhaps some nearby interference?)
(Mainly in the "Sockets and buttons" sections, around 1:25, but the rest doesn't seem to have it)
Loved this video, start to finish. I even learned some new British slang. I am going to start looking on eBay for one since I already have the cameras. I am thinking of making a "play" photo booth for my grandniece.
If you’ve got the woodwork skills that would be a pretty cool thing - I can just picture it now with retro photo booth decals adorning the case.
Sega has video printer for Sega Saturn and Sega Pico.
I have a Brother QL 700 at work that is a modern thermal label printer and it brings similar kind of joy. I think it's something about just how fast they spit the images out and so clearly.
Next episode... Matt tries an endoscope and we play guess the gadget from inside out
When I was still at the university, we used those for printing out our electrophoresis gels, I already thought that they were doing nothing more than printing out the picture on the screen ;-). Could even have been exactly the same model, so familiar it looks!
Many years ago, a friend of mine decided she wanted to protect the ultrasound photos she had of her 2 sons so decided the best thing to do was to laminate them. I think you can guess how that turned out. Even to this day I still laugh.
Gave me a chuckle too. A bit sad too…but there’s often humour in misfortune.
Both my kids (now 2 and 4) had their ultrasounds printed from a machine exactly like that, same paper size and everything. I couldn't help but notice the icon on the remote socket matches one on the Phillips massive tape machine from the previous video...
Holy crap. If I had one of these when I was younger, I would have been printing off everything. Especially a movie like Clerks. Also, I know it would be a pain in the butt because it's analog and not digital, but if you could use this with the vinyl video that would be cool. Also got to say, the contrast on those photos is amazing, especially for thermal paper. Why haven't we had a kickstarter for a black and white thermal instant camera?
There was a b&w thermal printer which, while not a Kickstarter had a Kickstarter feel about it. But it was quite pricey, and then they ran out of cash and the whole thing collapsed. Because it was mostly based around an app and API's (interfaces to the app/other online services) without the app and so on, it basically became useless. It looks like some open source group have tried to pick it up, but a good example of the danger of small run/kickstarter type things that are too app reliant: https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/29/3927228/little-printer-review
Cool little project, thanks! I'm having a baby soon and already have a stack of these ultrasound print outs. Now I want to pick up one of these and wire it to the baby monitor camera so I can print out cute shots on the fly.
These are still being used at hospitals where i work at. Useful for printing out fluoroscopy or endoscopy images.
I think I paid a few pounds for one of those printouts - a picture of my daughter in the womb - about 30 years ago! :-) That 75-ohm switch should be on if the printer is the last thing in the video picture chain. If it's looped on to a monitor, the monitor should have a 75-ohm termination switch or a 75ohm resistor across its output socket. This prevents ringing or echoes up and down the line which can add lines to the right of any sharp black/white transition in the picture: https://is.gd/unterminated
I forgot it had that switch until the end edit. I’ve never flipped it and it seemed ok, so I just left it where it was.
Wife: What are you up to? Me: Oh not much, I'm just watching a video of bloke on the internet I contribute money towards so he can connect a security camera to an old medical printer. Wife: ... Me: ...
I was just commenting to my wife that my youtube channel subscriptions are almost embarrassingly esoteric. The Hydraulic Press Channel....the London Underground History channel... The "What they ate in the 18th century" channel... The Ask-a-Mortician channel ... The "French guy who silently restores old computer gaming console" channel.... By comparison, Mat's videos are fairly mainstream!
That last picture has to be your new passport photo.
I feel like I’m due a partial refund on my last passport due to ‘The Event’.
Those remote inputs were pretty essential. The ultrasonic imagers used to have the print out function accessible from the top keypad. Today's machines just save boring image files to your digital patience file on a server or so.
What a nice vintage product. Haha your look in the last picture you took kinda reminds me of your green muppet. No idea why :)
Interesting how it seems to store the capture in RAM and not just printing line for line live
Yes it’s got a store - On the specs sheet it says it’s 10 frames. I presume the previous frames 1-9 are accessible via the menus. The last image can be reprinted with the copy button.