The Story of Virtuality | Nostalgia Nerd

48 Comments

1. Starting the video Oh, I hope he includes that scene from Hackers…

2. Flashbacks to Mechwarrior and DisneyQuest

3. It's amazing how low-talent and wishful the people that went into VR were. It attracts dreamers, not doers.

4. Tostesterone

5. Oh, super cool video. Thank you.

6. I remember they had a sot of road show where they would set up in a mall for a week or so like a carnival. I also remember thinking that it was interesting but not really all that fun or immersive as I expected.

7. "TOUCH ME I'M GONNA FUCKING MOAN!!"- modern VR experience.

8. 1:27 That girl self harms ?

9. Holy crap, I played that 1991 release with the platforms and stairs in Melbourne:)
   Damn I'm old lol

10. Personally, I think VR is gimmack. I do enjoy playing my old 3Ds even though Nintendo decided to abandon 3D. I thought the screens did a really good job. I don't know if they were trying to cut costs, HD was too difficult for 3D, or people just didn't care for it. Before they retired the system, they had 2D only versions. They were cheaper and I considered getting the New 2DS to cut costs, but the line is completely retired now. I doubt I'll ever have the money to buy a Switch. The games are expensive anyway.

11. I remember playing on one when I went to Ibiza in 1999 they had a boxing game running.

12. omg i always wanted to play one of these. back in 2004 i bought a bunch of old videogame magazines from the mid 90´s on a fleamarket and saw some pictures of these machines. just imagine if you could have dialed in into the internet with that machine back in the day and play an online rpg or an ego shooter with your friends and with 20fps od course 😀

13. Gotta love the girl in the 90s Dino Promo – kidnap a child from the 1950s and plop her in the 1990s!

14. Playing in VR truly is like being in another place, with the right game of course. I love it.

15. i was thinking that you should bring Linus there, but than i dont want anything there to be broken.

16. Shame it has taken nearly 30 years for home VR to become a mainstream thing.

17. Did Silicon Graphics got any VR system project?

18. Octavious is hot af ??

19. Did anyone else notice the text on the plans @4:20? HTC must’ve drawn some inspiration from yesteryear

20. 90fps looks like a slideshow to me. 20fps might as well just be an interactive gif.

21. I am so stoked to see where this will all go in the next years!

22. That was an excellent documentary. I only knew this company from the canned Jaguar headset. I had no idea about a lot of the other stuff featured in the video, so I ended up learning a lot. Thanks!

23. Your misses is a minx

24. Trim that beard. U look like a yeti

25. Personally I think VR is still only for the geeks and large computer businesses for training, It will never ever really become popular enough that you will find them in every home like a radio or TV.

    After all we were told in the 50”s that we would have flying cars and robots to do all the housework and look where that went….

26. I still can't believe "Leicester" is pronounced "Lester"

27. Who was that girl at 1:24 ? For research ofcourse

28. In the mid-90s, I worked as a tech for a virtual reality cafe called "Reality Bytes" in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We didn't have Virtuality equipment, but we had some others, most notably the Virtual IO glasses. These HMDs use small LCD displays that were bounced through half mirrored prisms into the eye. They had a shield in front that would work for VR, but if removed, allowed the HMD to be used for augmented reality. It had stereo headphones, and it used accelerometers for head tracking, rather than the Polhemus system. We had another headset with a Polhemus sensor on it, and it was better than the accelerometers, but not radically so, and a lot more expensive. Another big plus for the Virtual IO was that it was true stereo vision, so with the right games and software, you would have real depth perception. Many of the HMDs back then were just one LCD display giving you a flat perspective. The Virtual IO glasses were also very light. They also supported many of the popular PC games of the time, such as the original DOOM, and the fully stereoscopic Descent. One of the scariest games I played was a fan-made mod of DOOM called "Alien Total Conversion" which replaced all of the graphics with new ones based upon the movie "Alien". It was perhaps the sounds that were done in the game that lent the greatest creepiness to the game.

    I once watched a friend of mine play Descent for half an hour…I had told him not to play more than 5-10 minutes the first time…but he ignored me since he was a huge fan of the game on his home PC. When he took off the HMD, he stumbled, and I had to help him off the platform since he was having problems with his balance. I remember chatting on IRC with some VR researchers not long after that, and they explained that the problem was caused by the fact that your brain gets used to the slight lag in the VR realm between movement and the visual display of it in the game, and when you exit the VR realm, suddenly things are moving way faster than they were before, causing disorientation, vertigo, and in some extreme cases, vomiting. They had tentatively called it "Transition Sickness" since it only lasted a short time as your brain re-oriented to real-time action. It's now known as "VR Sickness".

29. My first VR was back at 98 at a local cinema of my area, while I was waiting for the movie to start (blade) I strolled down to the arcade area and there it was, an odd looking machine with a huge circling pad and a enormous helmet that said VR on the side. I knew I had to try it, and the game that I tried it with was Pac-man. I will never forget the wall that surrounded me and from the other side the top of the little ghosts heads was visible while they where moving slowly but surely around the walls to catch me! What an experience it was!!!

30. I worked with those W Industries VR units for Exhilarma entertainment centers in 1992-1994! At one time I had the National high score on Dactyl Nightmare! Lol

31. Very well done! That was a PBS quality documentary. This is definitely one of the best retro-gaming channels on YouTube.
    It was also nice to see Octav1ous make a cameo! You guys are such perfect couple. Was that your little'n watching you play the old VR game? That's really sweet. I wish you folks all the best. And keep up the great work, both of you!??

32. 43:15 Simon has a true passion to track down the original developers to repair the equipment.

33. Sega Touring Car machine is playing Indy 500. I love it.

34. I played on the Dactal Nightmares VR machines (pod -stood on that platform with a curved barrier/ fence around you) in the Trocadero in Central London in the early 90s – the graphics were crap so was the experience – yes I love VR I have the Oculus Quest

35. I just realised I love Andy Crane

36. 17:45 It's Dave Coulier meets Harvey Baines

37. For the love of God, PLEASE lose the fake scanlines.

38. what about that girl who first puts the virtuality head set on, is she okay. her arms are covered with scars?

39. Ever feel like you accidentally jump timelines and have to relearn history. Keeping you from putting your time into more productive activities?

40. I can't believe I've been putting off watching any of your videos, although I liked the subjects, because I got mixed up and thought you were the nostalgia critic (who's just intolerable to me). Happy now, I can go back and watch all your other vids knowing they're not all cringe-fests 🙂

41. Makes a video about the history of VR. Nothing about the rise of modern day VR and only a couple of words about Oculus Rift. For a channel like this, I think this is not good enough. Good video, but c'mon, if you're going to do something at least do it properly. Yeah it's a quality video and a lot of effort has gone into it. But don't short change us.

42. I remember those machines from the local amusement park as a kid. Great, vivid memories. Probably the reason I am such a VR fan today

43. Love the funny subtitles inserted here and there on your videos. I do notice! 🙂

44. Neurowanker. I know what side my virtual bread's buttered on, mate.

45. They had 3d in theaters in the 50's with those glasses… with the first 3d movie dating back to 1922.

46. 3D cinema in the 50's wasn't shown anaglyphic. http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/home/top-10-3-d-myths

47. VR took this much time because the console wars were costing parents more than enough. So we got virtual boy!!!

48. Virtuality MK II… potato pixels intensifies

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