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NASA VIEW Headset Defined VR Decades Before Oculus, Probably Can't Play Half-Life: Alyx

We bet you think your Oculus Quest or HTC Vive is pretty neat. Or that you think it's the epitome of a brand new technology rooted deeply in the 21st century. Well, sorry to say, my friend, you're dead wrong. NASA's been designing and testing virtual reality headsets since the people who created modern units were infants.
Steven F. Udvar Hazily Center 6 photos
Photo: Benny Kirk
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Say hello to one of the very first VR headsets ever built, now on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazily Center in Chantilly, Virginia. It was developed and created by hand by a crack team of scientists and engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. The two lead engineers were Jim Humphries And Mike McGreevy, two computer scientists employed at the facility.

Much like the HTC Vive or any modern VR unit, the NASA View consists of a self-contained screen connected to a set of lenses that focus the image through a viewing port at the rear of the device. Researchers at NASA had long wished for an affordable virtual reality simulator that could train prospective astronauts to interact with spacecraft systems. All without having to construct a full-fledged simulator at the cost of hundreds of thousands in taxpayer's money.

The result was what NASA described as a "Virtual Interface Environment Workstation (VIEW)." The way the acronym miraculously correlates with the device in question is one heck of a coincidence. Unlike previous pseudo VR devices, the NASA VIEW incorporated computer graphs and motion sensors to mimic a spacecraft-like environment that trainee military pilots and astronaut trainees could use to deal with the profoundly complex machines at hand.

In truth, the only paradigms separating the NASA VIEW from an HTC Vive or an Oculus Rift is the raw computing power differential between 1985 and 2021. Modern hardware benefits from unparalleled compute performance at a cost that even the average Joe can afford with a little bit of money saved. Even the most basic current VR setups can crank out more high-definition pixels at a higher framerate than a few hundred NASA headsets could muster put together.

Like the joycons standard with modern VR units, the system used a special "data glove" seemingly straight out of a Nintendo Entertainment System accessory catalog released around the same time as this headset. It used a series of sensors and wires to determine precise hand movements that felt natural enough to give a hands-on experience without the need for a full simulator.

The device was derived from an invention designed to help musicians play the air guitar, now that's plain gnarly. Not a bad piece of kit for something made back when Hulk Hogan was the WWF Champion, and Bon Jovi were still teenage heartthrobs. Better still, it's one of the hundreds of space artifacts on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Check back for more great exhibits from our trip right here on autoevolution.
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Editor's note: Article contains self-taken photos used with the permission of the National Air & Space Museum.

 

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