About: The teleyeglasses weighed about 140 grams and were built around small cathode-ray tubes that ran on low-voltage current from tiny batteries. (The user faced no danger of being electrocuted, Gernsback promised.) Because there was a separate screen for each eye, it could display stereoscopic images—much like today’s 3D virtual-reality glasses. Noting the massive V-type antenna protruding from the teleyeglasses, Life described the effect as “neo-Martian.”
Teleyeglasses Specs and Info…
Device: Teleyeglasses, (Television Glasses)
Manufacturer: Hugo Gernsback
Announced Date: April 1968
Release Date: Never Released
Launch Price: Unknown
Device Type: Other
Display: X2 Micro Black and White CRT’s
Diagonal Field of View(FOV): 20°
Refresh Rate: N/A
Weight: 140 g (0.30 lb)
CPU: N/A
GPU: N/A
Battery: N/A
Tracking: N/A
Controllers: N/A
Our Thoughts: No matter how funny you think these vintage headsets look just remember that at the time the inventors visions were far beyond anything the technology of the time was every going to handle, these early inventors are the real fathers and mothers of virtual reality. Not Oculus Rift, Not Sony or Hive it is these people. Having said that Hugo Gernsback’s “Television Glasses” is probably the funniest looking VR headset ever made. Sure we are laughing at them but in a respectful way.
The thing is these were really just video glasses of their time. But having invented this Gernsback had turned his back on his Sci-fi writing past and firmly believe that the tech of tomorrow was going to put sci-fi writers out of a job! Seems he really was far ahead of his time and obviously his invention never really caught on. Not for another 50 years anyway. It has to be said that it really does have that HMD shape, unlike the Sensorama.
Sources used…
- https://boingboing.net/2016/12/05/hugo-gernsbacks-1963-televis.html