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Atari Jaguar-Related VR Units Show Off Virtuality
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out videogame auction site Bidiots has a pair of Virtuality SU2000 Atari Jaguar-related VR pods for sale. These 1995-era 'virtual reality' arcade machines originally cost "$33,000 - $35,000 per seat", and the machines come bundled with compatible software titles, including Dactyl Nightmare 2, a multiplayer networked shooter in which, if you're not careful, the "awesome [eponymous] beast will pick you up in its claws, and fly hundreds of feet above the playing arena before dropping you to certain death!" A set of specifications for the SU2000 reveals more information, including exciting action shots of the device, and elsewhere, Atari Explorer has pictures of the unreleased Jaguar VR system, an "ambitious plan for a home VR headset at under $300" which used similar technology to this device.
Now I can pay thousands of dollars to look like a jackass, and I won't even have to look at the people laughing at me!
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
Made famouse by the movie Hackers. (In which steven fisher uses one)
stuff
The game linked to in the story was on British TV. Can't remember the name of the gameshow.
Also, does anyone remember the virtual reality WW1 flying game featuring an italian mad man in the seat behind you shouting
"He's a getting away!"
? What was the name of that thing ?
There used to be one in Bournemouth Tower Park Bowling.
I used to love those VR things, much what arcades should be about - hardware too expensive for the individual to buy.
ps, seen the other odd inputs such as the sword, weight mat, skateboards, surfboards and other crazy stuff.
Wish there was an arcade if knew of that had some nice VR. Maybe internet cafe's should do it?
A blog I run for the wealth
I played Dactyl Nightmare once when it was on tour and made it to my University. Usually people focused on the other player and did their best to avoid the Teradactyl. When I finally got my turn, I was unstoppable. The other opponent was easily dispatched time and again, but once the 'dactyl went for me. I said, "What the heck," and shot the thing out of the sky. It was reminiscent of that scene from the first Burton Batman film. Ah, good times.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
But the game was crap!
I hope you can get the source and compiler, or at least get the specs. It really doesn't do the hardware justice.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
I played that Dactyl game a long time ago. From what I remember, you could see the other guy's entire body, but if you looked down, all you saw was your left hand with the "gun" in it. It wasn't really a gun so much as it was a mushroom launcher. Damn thing took 5 seconds to reload too.
Gabriel Ricard
They were Amiga 3000s. An arcade here on the Isle of Palms had one. They were interesting, not so much for what they were, but what they portended for the future. Unfortunately, that future has not come to pass. Still cool stuff, though.
I worked at a place that leased 4 of these things for like 5 years. They were pretty rough. They broke all the time. Eventually the company we leased them from went out of business. We were left trying to get custom made cables to get them working again.
The company I worked for was in a mall, they went out of business, probably for spending thousands of dollars and stupid stuff like this.
As I recall, the system was basically a 486 with 2 big video cards, they had something like 4 40mm fans on each card.
Eventually we had 4 machines, with 2 sitting never used because we scavenged them for parts.
Personally I could never use the thing. The way the headset fit on me I could never get the proper 3D view.
Ah the heady days of the early 90's. VR was coming, and fast. Jaron Lanier (VPL) was in every issue of Mondo2000 (the precursor to Wired mag). The Dactyl-nightmare VR game (that was just one of the games) was just a taste of what was to come - they had one on the UC Berkeley campus and there was a long line all the time - soon after, I convinced the owner of the campus-side computer store I managed to lease one (me and my buds became the midnight VR crew). The $300 home VR gaming system was on its way. I had four different business plans based on this stuff. This was going to be the beggining of the transhuman revolution. I was going to learn how to juggle in VR - Jaron Lanier said so. Somehow, the whole thing just disappeared. VPL was sold to some French company, the gaming console never came, Mondo2000 gave way to Wired and the whole thing went poof. WHY??? I dunno. Maybe because VR makes people naseous? I remember being pretty sick after some 3am dactyl sessions, but I thought that it was just because the displays were laggy. Today's 3d shooters make me want to puke and always give me a headache, but I figured that is because I am looking at a 2d display. Maybe the military didn't want their tech going into the layman's hands? Conspiracy theorys anyone? Anybody out there know the rest of the story? Any links to current projects? With the advances in computing/graphics power, the stuff they were doing with 100k SGIs should be doable on 1k AMD boxen. Why isn't this stuff reality?
I remember playing, about 10 years+ ago, in a multiplayer LAN Battletech simulator.
Each player had to get into a closed realistic cockpit... the graphics were far superior to anything available at the time, but probably equivalent or slightly less good that what's possible on today's machines.
Does anyone remember those and know what kind of hardware they had?
It wasn't Dactyl nightmare that I played, but it was some other VR game at a local arcade.
The game was very boring. It basically consisted of you standing on this conveyor belt, shooting at whatever you could in the sky. I accdientally shot my co-player a couple of times.
It wasn't worth the money at all. The arcade that had it shut down(they only had 2 units). This was around 1996.
As for Mondo 2000, I had several issues. in hindsight, it was a rather bland magazine. Too many Ana-Voog like things in it(she was in the mag), and was just too weird to take seriously. If you want stories on weird performance art, I guess that is the magazine to read.
Then Ill be happy BattleTech was one of the best "VR" games to bad it cost so damn much.
I always wondered why the game manufacturers never tried more VR games, or at least high-end multi-player games, with experiences you simply could not get at home. The arcade manuf. simply gave up when they realized that the public was not buying into yet another Tekken/Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter sequel, which is sad. Arcades should be a place where you go to have fun that you simply cannot have at home. At worst I had hoped that the arcades would have the same situation that movies do now. Essentially movies have become long trailers for the dvd release. I wish someone would realize that the arcade model is very viable, but needs to be "reinvented" per-ce.... sigh...
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
First off, the Virtuality units were originally made by W Industries, Ltd (or LLC?), who later became Virtuality, Inc, now they are called something else (if they are still around - last I checked was a year or so ago). The original Virtuality pod, the SU1000 (for Stand Up - there was a sit-down racer style pod, as well) - was powered by an Amiga 3000 with a custom CD-ROM drive (I assume SCSI based), and custom graphic boards. This pod was released by W Industries. The HMD was heavy, the system lagged, but it worked, and had a very large FOV, though resolution was not great (but once you "looked past the pixels", your mind interpolated and everything became pretty nice). Dactyl Nightmare was the original game.
When W Industries became Virtuality, Inc - they released the second-generation pods (in both stand-up and sit-down models) - the 2000 series. From what I recall, these were based on PC components (though the graphics boards were still custom), not the Amiga. The HMDs still had a nice FOV, but the resolution was much, much better, and there were more colors, plus they were lighter. There was less lag, as well, and tracking was improved (not that the original's tracking was that bad). Dactyl Nightmare 2 was OK - but it wasn't as fun as the original - there was other games, too (Zone Runner or something, where you were a cyborg cop or such - plus a boxing game of sorts).
When they changed their name the third time (why all the name changes - who knows? - tax evasion?) - they continued to sell the 2000 series - but they also sold the Visette for the 2000 seperately as a research/development HMD. I must admit, I would love to get my hands on one of those HMDs - they were sweet (at least 60-70 degrees horizontal FOV, with probably 640x480 res or better - close to full immersion with good res).
Ok, enough about Virtuality pods. On to the whys of where is VR today.
VR today isn't known as VR. At one time, it was called "Virtual Environments" - now I think it has dropped down and is just a tool used in simulation and data visualization (where it has always had use). There are still companies providing HMDs and immersive environments, plus all the assorted hardware - but they market to researchers and game development companies (tracking systems mostly to the latter - for modeling movement via motion capture hardware - aka 3D tracking). DOD is another big user (look up the Dismounted Soldier project if you are curious). The Big Three auto makers, and large oil companies, also use the tech for simulation and data vis.
What does that leave the home VR enthusiast? Not much. Current hardware is fairly expensive, at the pro-level. Look for costs anywhere from $2500-25000 and up for HMDs (though there are some really sweet ones out there - mostly for wearable type systems - things that are close to the size of sunglasses - imagine the bulky grandma sunglasses, but they are VR goggles, and weigh about same). Tracking systems are still pretty expensive (Polhemus and Ascension still make their systems - but they haven't drop in price - a two sensor system will probably set you back a few grand). Gloves are still made, and the variety is better today, though the sweet VPL data glove isn't made anymore (Thompson of France had the patents at one time - I haven't seen any product like it, though). Software is still sketchy, some of the big packages still exist, but most of the time the stuff is home-rolled or otherwise cobbled together, or it is custom-controlled vis or simulation software. There are also companies out there supplying special models and modeling software for simulation use.
The market isn't for the home user, to put it simply. The home user, if he wants his own VR system, is going to have to build it himself. Indeed, in the early 90's this was a given: With Rend386 for DOS (or VR386, or Avril), a powerglove, and an HMD hacked from plans from PCVR (using LCD TVs) and arm-based trackers - one could have an interesting and useful VR rig, and a
Reason is the Path to God - Anon