VPL Research -- Pioneers in Virtual Reality

Readying to introduce MicroCosm, an entirely Macintosh-based VR system at MacWorld '92. The Guru of Virtual Reality is posing the question: "Are you sure all this stuff is going to fit in here?"

What it's supposed to do: Combine various subsystems for locating where the user is looking (Ascension head tracker), where the user is pointing (Ascension hand tracker), how the user is pointing or gesturing (VPL DataGlove), and ultimately what the user is supposed to be seeing and hearing (VPL EyePhones) in the virtual world.

This is essentially the same set of components used in VPL's rack-mounted VR systems, except all real-time processing will be handled by a Mac Quadra(!), including rendering by Division Graphics boards rather than an externally linked SGI Reality Engine.

Hmm, sure seems like a tight squeeze. Maybe it would have been better to have asked the industrial design firm to design the prototype enclosure after we got all the sub-systems patched together and working...

What has to be inside to do all this: custom A/D I/O boards for intefacing the DataGlove, RGB-video converters for the EyePhones, audio amplifier for headphones, gutted Ascension tracker boards, and lots of cables and tie-wraps.

Photos by Ann Lasko-Harvill

30 hours later, it's all packed together, and all systems are working. The date is January 12, 1992, the opening day of MacWorld.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 series computer. I first became operational on January 12, 1992 at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois. My instructor Dr. Chandler has taught me song to sing. Would you like to hear it?..."