The First VR Headset - The Sword Of Damocles and The Virtual Boy

Virtual Reality has actually been around in one form or another much longer than you might think.

VR is often viewed as a more recent technological breakthrough with huge advances in consumer headsets like the original Oculus Rift, Valve Index, and HTC Vive. Not to mention more recent breakthroughs in standalone VR headsets (those that don’t need to be plugged into a PC to work) in the Meta Quest and Pico.

Despite the popularity and consumer availability of VR headsets skyrocketing so recently in the last decade, Virtual Reality technology has actually been around since the 1960s with the first VR headset… The Sword Of Damocles.

The First VR Headset - The Sword Of Damocles Or Rather The Stereoscopic-Television Apparatus for Individual Use (or Head Mounted Display)

You read that title right, while the “first VR headset” is commonly known as the “Sword Of Damocles” in reference to the biblical story in which a ruler lives beneath a swinging sword that may fall at any moment over their thrown, this prototype Virtual Reality device wasn’t actually called that.

According to the inventor credited with the creation of this device, Ivan Sutherland, the proper name of it was actually “Stereoscopic-Television Apparatus for Individual Use” or the “Head Mounted Display”. It was created way back in 1968.

Some old photos of the “Sword Of Damocles” Head Mounted Display. The first VR headset.

This name can be linked to a common term for VR headsets, which is Head Mounted Display or HMD. A very scientific sounding name, since any VR headset is, in essence, a display of two screens mounted on the head of the user.

The Sword of Damocles's name might also originate from the fact that this early VR prototype was suspended from the ceiling, and each user had to be strapped into it so that they wouldn’t move too far and escape the device. Surely a far cry from today’s VR headsets that are completely self contained and stay attached to your head until you purposefully take them off.

The field of view was merely 40 degrees, and since computers of the time had such limited processing power the first Head Mounted Display showed only wireframes and basic geometric shapes.

This innovation was derived from the head tracked camera displays being developed for helicopters. The difference here being that what the user saw was rendered by a computer rather than cameras.

While a far cry from today’s VR devices, the Head Mounted Display is far and wide attributed to being the first VR headset in that it was the first device ever to display a 3D environment generated by a computer to a user with a stereoscopic view by using a display over each eye. Each of these displays show the same environment from a slightly different angle to simulate depth perception like your actual eyes do in the real world.

For more about the first VR headset check out this Forbes interview with Ivan Sutherland.

Of course, a very select few students and professors could actually access the Head Mounted Display, and so despite the innovation it represented, it wasn’t really the first VR headset that was commercially available or usable by the public. So what was?

The First VR Headset Anybody Could Own - The Virtual Boy

Of course, the lack of access to the original Head Mounted Display for anyone except a select few makes it kind of dubious to call it the first VR headset because it was more of a prototype than a product.

The honor of the first mass market VR headset is widely attributed to the Virtual Boy. This was the first mass market console that could display stereoscopic 3D graphics into a gamer’s eyes.

The Virtual Boy. The first VR headset to be available to consumers.

Released to the public in 1995, the Virtual Boy was the first VR head mounted display available to the average consumer, though for a hefty price (about 370$ in today’s money). The Virtual Boy didn’t sell well, less than a million units overall, and to this day is much sought after by vintage game collectors for this reason.

That being said the Virtual Boy might have been before its time. It married a lot of the parts and features you might find in a Virtual Reality headset today with those of a gaming console you might find today.

The Virtual Boy had no hand controls, but rather a controller that also powered the headset itself, which was meant to be used not attached to your head, but on a stand on a table in front of you. Just like a modern VR headset, there was a face cover on the front of the Virtual Boy to keep external light out of your eyes. You could even change the distance between the two displays that simulate your “eyes” with a slider, just like a modern headset.

The graphics of the Virtual Boy were way behind that of the original Head Mounted Display, though they’re still pretty bad by today’s standards, and are also all in black and red monochrome.

This is what a game in the Virtual Boy looks like. Very red.

This was all to keep the costs of producing the headset down. There were also few games available for it, and the public reception was very poor. This is attributed partially to how the VR headset was marketed, but mostly that it was considered very uncomfortable to use. The stand of the headset was not very adjustable and so it was hard to use it without having to hunch over uncomfortably. Eye strain was also common due to the low resolution and red color of the rendered graphics.

Despite this, the Virtual Boy is widely considered simply ahead of its time and the first VR headset to hit store shelves. While SEGA had earlier attempted to create a VR game console like the Virtual Boy, they never made it to market. So Nintendo gets the dubious honor having the first VR headset to be commercially available and also to commercially fail.

The Virtual Boy was discontinued in 1995, the same year it was released.

Thanks for reading. While the “Sword Of Damocles” Head Mounted Display is the first VR headset ever, the Virtual Boy is the first VR headset that anybody could buy and use, for a year at least, and so both of these pieces of technology have gone down in history as true innovators of their times.