About: The View-Master (Now it is a brand owned by Mattel) was originally made by Sawyer’s and they started to make these in 1939 (Just 4 years after Kodachrome colour film was invented!) and believe it or not they didn’t stop selling them right up until March 2009! We are not talking a few thousand sold, we are talking hundreds of millions and literary double or possible quadruple that in the number of 3D photo wheels! We now know that as soon as they stopped selling these, they then started working on an upgraded mobile VR headset that commandeers the same name as this original toy!
View-Master Specs and Info…
Headset: View-Master
Manufacturer: Sawyer’s
Announced Date: January 1939
Release Date: March 1939
Launch Price: Unknown
Device Type: Other
Display: N/A
Diagonal Field of View(FOV): 30°
Refresh Rate: N/A
Weight: 139 g (0.30 lb)
CPU: N/A
GPU: N/A
Battery: N/A
Tracking: N/A
Controllers: N/A
Our Thoughts: Believe it or not, it didn’t start life as a toy or even start being sold as a toy! It was originally sold at photography shops, stationery stores, and scenic attraction gift shops because it was seen as a virtual window into any place they could produce a photo for. But is it really a virtual reality headset? The answer is yes! While it might have often been described and seen as something for the kids to play with it did amazing things and at the time was probably the closest thing anyone had ever come to producing a VR headset.
Sources used…
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View-Master