Gaming hardware flops second chance at success?

[Colin]

So I'm sure quite a few people know about this, but this pic of the Atari Jaguar hardware being turned into a dentists tool really gave me a chuckle:



Anyone know of any other examples of gaming hardware being given a second chance as something non games related? Only other one I can think of is Panasonics proposed 3do follow up the M2 being used as the hard/software in vending machines, which always seemed such a shame.

[Decider-VT]

The funniest thing about the repurposed Jaguar chassis is the fact that some enthusiasts bought new old stock of them so they could re-case their machines and create white Jaguars. Full circle!

[CMcK]

M2 was also used in a 3d virtual walkthrough appliance for the construction industry. My step father was considering buying them for the building firm he worked for at the time.

[abigsmurf]

PowerVR lost out to 3DFX and Nvidia in the discrete PC 3D card market early on.

They now rule the phone and tablet market because of how low power and affordable their graphics chips are.

[CMcK]

PowerVR stuff is used far more widely than you would think. STBs, pub quiz machines, Intel chipset and so on. Clever British technology at it's best.

[BuckoA51]

Wasn't the CD32 used for a science museum exhibit or something? Though at the time I think the CD32 was still on sale as a regular games console too, so not sure if that counts.

[Flabio]

The CDi was often used in museums, not so sure about the CD32.

[samanosuke]

I thought the CD32 was used for some kind of POS hardware IIRC. That's POS as in Point of Sale in case you were wondering...

[monel]

Didn't the Dreamcast have PowerVR components?

What happened to Dreamcast cable/set top boxes? Did that never transpire?

[CMcK]

Don't think any cable company bothered with the DC STB chipset. By the time they would have been ready to go the DC was already struggling. And I would expect the bandwidth and storage demands of DC would have been a bit off putting anyway.

[monel]

I think it was after the DC was discontinued, rumours were still going around of some cable companie(s) looking into using the chipset for their set top boxes.

[Lyris]

Yes, I think it was PACE who, supposedly, were going to built cable STBs with Dreamcast hardware built in. So you could play games delivered via cable. This was in 2001.

Of course, it was just another vague "Maybe this will happen!" story from the Dreamcast days.

[monel]

The Dreamcast, I loved it so much, was gutted with how things played out. Never been a fanboy but it did make me hate the PS2 a bit.

I just wished at the time that Sega would have still continued putting out software for it, while still going on to develop for other formats.

[Grapple Convoy]

M2 was also used in a 3d virtual walkthrough appliance for the construction industry. My step father was considering buying them for the building firm he worked for at the time.

Did it look like the item being auctioned off here, as far as you know?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260740150921

[kernow]

Yup, was also used as a car sales point demonstration thing.