What are these PCBs on Star Trek TNG?

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Ben Boldt
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What are these PCBs on Star Trek TNG?

Post by Ben Boldt »

Here is a snapshot from Star Trek TNG season 6 episode 8 “A Fistful of Datas”, time 21:30, airdate Nov 9, 1992:
vlcsnap-2025-11-30-16h12m04s768.png
Those PCBs look very Nintendo-like. The one closest to the camera looks like a Gameboy cartridge with a non-populated battery, and the one Geordi is working on, I see 2 of those classic rectangular QFP-100s and a cylindrical quartz crystal, which looks an awful lot like a cut out SNES motherboard but not quite exactly. I see a white circuit board in that one too which makes me think Gameboy motherboard, but not quite right there either. Can anyone identify those?
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creaothceann
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Re: What are these PCBs on Star Trek TNG?

Post by creaothceann »

Here and here are larger pictures...
This says that "PADD"s were designed by Rick Sternbach, so they may be unique.

"it seems likely production needed some props and someone just threw these in"
My current setup:
Super Famicom ("2/1/3" SNS-CPU-GPM-02) → SCART → OSSC → StarTech USB3HDCAP → AmaRecTV 3.10
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Memblers
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Re: What are these PCBs on Star Trek TNG?

Post by Memblers »

When I see a rectangular QFP like that, I think of a display controller or driver, like HD44780.

The chip on that other board looks a lot like .3" wide SOIC-28, so maybe a memory chip?
16-afistfulofdatas-r.jpg
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