Batman: Year One, Apple Two
| Filed under Mainstream coverage; 3 comments. |
In its lifetime, the Apple II computer has a variety of unusual uses, from making piano player music to demonstrating motion-activated inputs. How about an ultrasound monitor?
That is the application to which the Apple II was put in last month’s direct-to-DVD release of Batman: Year One. The tale is set at the dawn of Bruce Wayne’s superhero career, reflect in the movie’s slightly antiquated look. In one scene, Jim Gordon’s wife visits the hospital for an ultrasound; in another, a trauma victim’s vitals are monitored. Both times, an Apple II can be seen in the background.
According to the 1985 journal article "Mixing Apple microcomputer graphics for ultrasound scan measurement" in Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, the official journal of the World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, Batman: Year One is not playing fast and loose with its historical fiction but is instead accurately portraying the technology of the era and its capabilities:
A modern microcomputer with high-resolution graphics can provide an inexpensive method for measurement on video images from a real-time ultrasound scanner. The problem which has to be overcome to allow the computer graphics to be superimposed on the ultrasound video image and permit subsequent analysis is that of synchronization. The video signals must be synchronized before they can be mixed, but neither microcomputers nor ultrasound scanners provide facilities for external synchronization of their video output. A mixer has been designed which uses a buffer memory and allows the graphics of an Apple II microcomputer to be synchronized and mixed with an external video image; we used a Hitachi EUB22 real-time ultrasound scanner. The resulting combination is a versatile instrument which permits a wide range of measurements on ultrasonic images.
Facebook user Herbert Fung first spotted these artifacts, reporting the sighting on October 22 and following up a day later with the above screen captures. Dave Miller provided the historical context.
I would have thought that an Apple II couldn’t refresh fast enough to do an accurate ultrasound, but if the output was taken and synchronized elsewhere, that now sounds plausible. Who’d a thunk it?
Neat finds! The Apple II looks so perfect there. Is that a ][+ in the first picture? Also, is it just the lighting in the second picture, or a Bell & Howell?
I think it’s the lighting, Martin. I saw this movie and should’ve taken my own screenshots but was too busy getting ready for Thanksgiving. I do recall that scene being poorly lit, though.