Archives for “HMD”

The Science Channel interviews Jaron Lanier who shows off some wide field of view headsets from the late 80′s. Jaron feels like a platypus when wearing one of these JumboTrons. The narrator’s conclusion (and Jaron’s as well): The state of the art in VR hasn’t progressed too much further.   (A tip of the hat [...] Related posts:

  1. And I’m Never Going Back To My Old School
  2. Beware the funny hair… its a tech cult giveaway
  3. Jaron Lanier Explains Why There’s Still Not A VR Bubble


There’s been an enormous resurgence of DIY HMDs in the VR hacker community recently, some quite impressive. Understanding how the eye works is the key to these inventions. I found a really instructive 70 year old nugget which gives HMD designers the real lowdown. All the way from 1941 to you…. If you find this [...] Related posts:

  1. It’s All In Between The Eyes
  2. How To Buy LCDs (in 1995)
  3. Low Cost VR For The Virtual Hacker


Rob Spence, had his eye replaced with a video camera after a shotgun accident. He then set out to make this incredible documentary about visual and limb prostheses. The concept of direct imaging to the brain and the incorporation of augmented reality has been much flailed over the past 30 years. Spence introduces us to [...] No related posts.


Harvey Newquist tires of waiting for the New York Post headline to scream: “Wife Dumps Husband For Cybersex Lover” or “Computer Casanova Seduces Virtual Valerie.” Money quote: Does the average person get to see or use any of this stuff? Can you go any place just experience the joys of VR? Is Ronald Reagan in [...] Related posts:

  1. A Day In The Life
  2. Warning Will Robinson, Warning!
  3. 10 Reasons Why Virtual Reality Did Not Become a Standard


From 1993: “Now you can go to Radio Shack, buy what you need, and build it yourself.” Robert Suding and the Virtual Reality Special Report provide specific instructions for building a stereoscopic HMD for $435. Interestingly the optics and prisms are quite similar to the V-Rtifacts “Leep On The Cheap” design. Read the plans in [...] Related posts:

  1. Teardown – Virtual Research V6
  2. Build Your Own Fluid-based Prismatic Stereoscopic Goggles
  3. Take Flight in the Virtual World


From the 1995 made for TV B movie Evolver, check out their head mounted display of choice. Tweet [Übersetzung] Related posts:

  1. Number 5 in PC World’s “Ugliest Products in Tech History” – VIRTUAL BOY
  2. Liquid Image MRG2.2 Disassembly and Potential Upgrades
  3. Display Mounted Head? – Kimera


[caption id="attachment_2948" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Virtual Research VR-4 Adapted For Stereoscopic Augmented Reality - circa 1993"]Virtual Research VR-4 Adapted For Stereoscopic Augmented Reality[/caption]

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  1. Retrospective photo review of Forte VFX1 Virtual Reality system
  2. Mnemonic’s MRG2.2 Upgrade – Augmented Reality + Kinect
  3. Lawrence Taylor Teams Up With Virtual Reality


Based on a mix of US and Japanese technology, this brief news segment shows a vibrant VR c0mmunity in 1990 Japan. There’s gloves and HMDs from VPL, although the LCD displays inside the helmet are from Sony Japan. There’s also a nice augmented reality helmet (built on an actual construction helmet), and a force/tactile feedback [...] Related posts:

  1. Mnemonic’s MRG2.2 Upgrade – Augmented Reality + Kinect
  2. Back In The USSR
  3. And I’m Never Going Back To My Old School


Size matters! If you ask the manufacturers of Head Mounted Displays over the past 15 years, they would echo that mantra, but it’s SMALL size that they’re boasting. Indeed, those tiny little eye glasses size VR displays look cool (from the outside), but from the inside you’re looking through a distant window. It’s hardly immersive. [...] Related posts:

  1. LEEP On The Cheap
  2. Nothing New Under the Sun!
  3. Flight Helmet – Redux


Several months ago I shipped off an MRG2.2 to Mnemonic in the Ukraine. He said he wanted to do a few mods and some experimenting. Little did I know that he would put together a totally sweet augmented reality system, where the view inside the VR helmet combined the real world outside the helmet with [...] Related posts:

  1. Liquid Image MRG2.2 Disassembly and Potential Upgrades
  2. 6 lbs. 12 oz. – It’s a Baby Headmount! – Liquid Image MRG2
  3. Vuzix Wrap 920 Augmented Reality Hands On


Two snippets from the old, old school of VR, circa 1991, pitching a reputable UK firm – Division (acquired by PTC in 1999.) Featured are a couple of helmets from VPL Research using LEEP optics and cloth/velcro enclosures. One HMD appears to have been modeled after a gask mask from the trenches of the Great [...] Related posts:

  1. Back In The Day – Japan 1990
  2. Back In The USSR
  3. Take Flight in the Virtual World


If you look yourself in the eyes, you’ll start to realize that your eyes and your head are different than anyone else’s. The spacing between your eyes, known as the interpupilary distance is about 65mm, but this varies from 50mm to about 75mm, depending on who’s eyes you’re looking through. Also the position of your [...] Related posts:

  1. Nothing New Under the Sun!
  2. Teardown – Virtual Research V6
  3. Tearing Out the Guts of a Virtual Research VR-4 Helmet


Over at Meant to be Seen 3D, in answer to a forum post looking for the perfect HMD, board vet, cybereality took the time to respond in depth… Money quote: Well, sadly to say it, you will probably be waiting for a long time. There is nothing I know of on the market that fulfills [...] Related posts:

  1. 10 Reasons Why Virtual Reality Did Not Become a Standard
  2. You Put on Your Helmet One Morning and Find Yourself Transformed Into a Monstrous ******?
  3. Platypus Headsets?


IMHO, the Virtual Research Flight Helmet was, and still is, the ultimate head mounted display, except of course, it needed modern high resolution LCD panels. Otherwise, it had incredible field of view, great ergonomics, and unbeatable LEEP optics. I came across a more complete brochure including the retail price list (starts at $6,000.) One unusual [...] Related posts:

  1. Myron Kruger Takes a Spin in the Flight Helmet
  2. Take Flight in the Virtual World
  3. Nothing New Under the Sun!


Forte VFX1 was the most advanced, complex and expensive consumer VR system that appeared on the market during VR craze in mid-nineties. Introduced in 1995, VFX1 was in the shops all around the world in 1996. Hardware overview System consisted of: Stereoscopic HMD “VFX1 headgear” with built-in 3DOF head-tracker from Honeywell, 45 degree diagonal FOV [...] Related posts:

  1. Back In The USSR
  2. Vuzix Wrap 920 Augmented Reality Hands On
  3. Teardown – Virtual Research V6


1995 brought us the V6 head mounted display from Virtual Research, the successor to the excellent design of the VR-4. The V6 doubled the overall resolution while retaining the great optics, field of view, comfort, and ease of use originally found in the VR-4. In addition to improved image quality, the V6 refined many of [...] Related posts:

  1. Tearing Out the Guts of a Virtual Research VR-4 Helmet
  2. Retrospective photo review of Forte VFX1 Virtual Reality system
  3. How To Buy LCDs (in 1995)


Jeremy Oliver advises how to purchase LCD displays for your next homebrew VR helmet. (Hint: take all your optics to Montgomery Wards and try every TV and camcorder on the shelf!) Jeremy’s less than successful experience with Radio Shack suggests a big thumbs down, but what did I know; my first DIY leveraged their Pocketvision-27 [...] Related posts:

  1. 1995 Virtual IO I-Glasses
  2. Teardown – Virtual Research V6
  3. Liquid Image MRG2.2 Disassembly and Potential Upgrades


VR today is like early TV: it suffers from the split personality of most start-up high-tech industries. At the one end is the top of the line research, carried out by institutions with no mandate to sell anything. At the other end, we have new hardware and software products whose developers are only too happy [...] Related posts:

  1. CAVE® – A Virtual Reality Theater – 1993
  2. A Day In The Life
  3. Flashback To The ’40s


Yes, I’ve heard rumors of bugs (lice) inside VR helmets (untrue!), but researchers in Spain are bloody Kafkaesque, putting virtual cockroaches all over the screens. They “got the bright idea to simulate hoards of cockroaches swarming over insect-phobic volunteers…”, showing that “roaches could skitter, wave their antenna, and even change size from small and medium [...] Related posts:

  1. Myron Kruger Takes a Spin in the Flight Helmet
  2. Flight Helmet – Redux
  3. Tearing Out the Guts of a Virtual Research VR-4 Helmet


Build your own LEEP style wide field of view head mounted display optics. Check out the instruction video and parts list below. In the late 80′s and early 90′s wide field of view head mounted displays were all the rage; immersion was everything! The dominant HMD vendors, VPL Research and Virtual Research shared the same [...] Related posts:

  1. Nothing New Under the Sun!
  2. Take Flight in the Virtual World
  3. Flight Helmet – Redux


USA and other western world faced consumer-focused Virtual Reality boom in late 80s and early 90s, accurately when USSR is fall apart. VR came to big industrial cities of post USSR later in 1995 – 1998, when VR hype slowly begin to fall down in USA. That was in a few years after IBM-compatible PC’s [...] Related posts:

  1. And I’m Never Going Back To My Old School
  2. Retrospective photo review of Forte VFX1 Virtual Reality system
  3. Back In The Day – Japan 1990


So well you probably know that it is not a standard that new computers get shipped with VR headsets, although you might have believed that during the mid-90s VR craze. In 1995 many analysts – serious people – predicted that in 10 years most computers would be shipped with VR headsets or other VR equipment. [...] Related posts:

  1. Lawrence Taylor Teams Up With Virtual Reality
  2. So Serious – 1980′s Virtual Reality from NASA
  3. The return of Virtual Reality?


I don’t really agree with the Virtual Boy being VR’s “nail in the coffin”. I think it was just one of many crappy products. Maybe it could have saved the VR hype for a while if it was a big success, but as it is it’s just one of the many VR obscurities that simply [...] Related posts:

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  2. Retrospective photo review of Forte VFX1 Virtual Reality system
  3. 10 Reasons Why Virtual Reality Did Not Become a Standard


Ah well, a review of the PT-01 from Optics 1 … Back in the days it was ridiculous expensive, like most of the VR stuff. The pros are that it is very light and optimized for mobile use, i love that it comes with a belt clip and can be driven by a common battery. [...] Related posts:

  1. The City and the Stars – VR a Billion Years From Now!
  2. Display Mounted Head? – Kimera
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Nintendo’s 1995 Virtual Boy was a whole cartridge based game system inside a desktop-mounted-head stereoscopic immersive display. Designed by Gunpei Yokoi of Gameboy fame, and offered for $180 retail, the market was less than kind. It was withdrawn from the market in less than a year and now can still be found late in the [...] Related posts:

  1. Virtual Boy – Another Perspective…
  2. Retrospective photo review of Forte VFX1 Virtual Reality system
  3. 10 Reasons Why Virtual Reality Did Not Become a Standard