Re:There Is No A.I
by Animats on Friday April 21, 2023 @09:11PM
(#35662316)
He did have a team that produced an early VR system. It took two expensive Silicon Graphics machine to run the headgear. I got to try it, with him present.
There was a second person wired up, driving a model of a lobster or octopus or something, and I could sort of interact with them. All the right parts were there. But it didn't work very well. Too slow, and too low-rez. Turn head, wait for tracker and rendering to catch up. 80s VR was pretty marginal.
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Re:There Is No A.I
by atdrummond on Friday April 21, 2023 @09:33PM
(#35662448)
VPL Research did do real work and everyone I've interacted with from that era was impressed with what they achieved given their limited resources. That said, it is pretty clear from looking at modern VR systems how little they relate to the future he predicted. Not discounting his accomplishments at all - I actually think a lot his output was pretty incredible!
I certainly think Palmer Lucky could in many ways have at least a legitimate claim to being a founder of modern VR; his Oculus not only completely revived the industry but also showed other companies that there was indeed a market for this tech.