It's actually a bit disappointing how an art project by a dilettante is promoted over previous work by others, and praised as an early version of VR when Gersbeck meant it as a portable personal stereoscopic TV receiving shows from a broadcast station.
> Morton Heilig's next commercial offering was the Telesphere Mask (patented 1960) and was the first example of a head-mounted display (HMD), albeit for a non-interactive film medium without any motion tracking. The headset provided stereoscopic 3D and wide vision with stereo sound.
> In 1961, two Philco Corporation engineers (Comeau & Bryan) developed the first precursor to the HMD as we know it today—the Headsight. It incorporated an independent video screen for each eye and a magnetic motion tracking system, which was linked to a closed circuit camera. The Headsight was not actually developed for virtual reality applications (the term didn't exist then), but to allow for immersive remote viewing of dangerous situations by the military. Head movements would move a remote camera, allowing the user to naturally look around the environment. Headsight was the first step in the evolution of the VR head mounted display but it lacked the integration of computer and image generation.
Here's Heilig's patent for "Stereoscopic-television apparatus for individual use" https://patents.google.com/patent/US2955156A/en?q=(Morton)&i... , filed in 1957 and granted in 1960. Not only was it a head-mounted display, but it included air tubes so the wearer could feel a breeze, and optionally smell scents.
Here's pre-1963 work mentioned in a patent application at https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180224936A1/en?q=(Tele...
> Morton Heilig's next commercial offering was the Telesphere Mask (patented 1960) and was the first example of a head-mounted display (HMD), albeit for a non-interactive film medium without any motion tracking. The headset provided stereoscopic 3D and wide vision with stereo sound.
> In 1961, two Philco Corporation engineers (Comeau & Bryan) developed the first precursor to the HMD as we know it today—the Headsight. It incorporated an independent video screen for each eye and a magnetic motion tracking system, which was linked to a closed circuit camera. The Headsight was not actually developed for virtual reality applications (the term didn't exist then), but to allow for immersive remote viewing of dangerous situations by the military. Head movements would move a remote camera, allowing the user to naturally look around the environment. Headsight was the first step in the evolution of the VR head mounted display but it lacked the integration of computer and image generation.
Here's Heilig's patent for "Stereoscopic-television apparatus for individual use" https://patents.google.com/patent/US2955156A/en?q=(Morton)&i... , filed in 1957 and granted in 1960. Not only was it a head-mounted display, but it included air tubes so the wearer could feel a breeze, and optionally smell scents.
Headsight was on the cover of the magazine "Electronics" in 1961, https://archive.org/details/sim_electronics_1961-11-10_34_45... , and the article shows it actually worked, and was not a mockup.