i am going to lose it these games make me want to scream i hate it
i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it
i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it
In 1981, on a very small budget, NASA created the prototype of a liquid crystal display (LCD)-based HMD, which they named the Virtual Visual Environment Display (VIVED). NASA scientists simply disassembled commercially available Sony Watchman TVs and put the LCDs on special optics.
The idea that there's a pair of small early analogue LCD televisions in that thing is very amusing to me.
NASA scientists then proceeded to create the first virtual reality system by incorporating a DEC PDP 11-40 host computer, a Picture System 2 graphics computer (from Evans and Sutherland), and a Polhemus noncontact tracker. The tracker was used to measure the user's head motion and transmit it to the PDP 11-40. The host computer then relayed these data to the graphics computer, which calculated new images displayed in stereo on the VIVED.
The original VIVED project became VIEW (for Virtual Interface Environment Workstation) and the original software was ported to a newer Hewlett-Packard 9000, which had sufficient graphics performance to replace the wireframe rendering used in VIVED with more realistic flat-shaded surfaces.
The internet seems to be confused about the naming of the various phases of this stage, and NASA aren't really helping with useful primary sources; it looks like this image is probably the VIEW system, though the image source lists it as the VIVED, the VIVED appears to be old enough that it's unlikely that version used the Sony Watchman LCDs, as they didn't appear until 1988. VIVED also appears to have been built into a helmet, rather than a headset like this. Given the timeframe (allegedly the project completed in 1989/1990), if they're colour, VIEW probably used a pair of Sony FDL-330Ses, which totally checks out given the modular design, composite input, and fairly small stature.
image source, quotations from Burdea, Grigore C., and Philippe Coiffet. Virtual Reality Technology. 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons, 2003. , more info from Rosson, Lois. The Virtual Interface Environment Workstation (VIEW), 1990. 2014.
who cares. i know all of these already.
