7 min read
02 Nov
02Nov

I remember that moment as if it were yesterday. I was a 13-year-old boy, celebrating my bar mitzvah. My mother took me to a new video game arcade in Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv. There, for the first time, I met virtual reality.



I remember standing, amazed, in front of the giant machines that looked like machines from the future. When it was my turn, they put me in a giant suit and helmet, and the equipment was terribly heavy. But I didn't care. Within seconds, I entered another world.



The first game I played was spaceships. I was a spaceship pilot landing on an alien planet. The environment was so detailed and beautiful, and the visual effects were amazing. I felt like I was really there, in space.


The second game I played was a car race. I was a race car driver competing in a race in the desert. The speed was insane, and the feeling of driving a race car was unforgettable.I was in love. I knew this was the technology of the future.


After that experience, I decided that I had to buy an Amiga 500 computer so I could play virtual reality games at home. I invested all of my bar mitzvah money in the computer, but unfortunately, by the time I bought it, virtual reality had disappeared.



For many years, I waited for the technology to come back. I heard many rumors about its return, but it didn't happen. It's important to note that in the 1990s, the peak of graphic computer technology was a computer from Commodore Amiga, an "over" computer for that time. It's important to note that at that time, most of the public did not have a computer, and for those who already had one, it was a compatible PC, in yellow or black, compared to Amiga, which was built for graphics that were very impressive at the time: 


The legendary Commodore International, was the manufacturer of AMIGA and in 1987 Commodore successfully created the Amiga 500 computers, which was the company's best-selling model.It was a kind of new combination at the time of a personal computer and a game console (CD32)Release date July 23, 1985; 33 years ago (Amiga 1000)Price US $ 1,295 + $ 300 (including monitor)Successors 1996 (Amiga 1200 and 4000 T)Operating system Amiga OS on KickstartMotorola 680x0 @ ≈7 MHz and above processor Memory 256 kilobytes and above, expandableIn short:After the positive shake-up experience, I decided that I wanted virtual reality at all costs, but first of all, a powerful computer was needed. 



30 Years Later

After many failures in the field of virtual reality (VR) throughout the 1980s and 1990s, in the early 2000s, a young man named Palmer Luckey built VR goggles in his garage.



Luckey was born and raised in Long Beach, California, with three younger sisters, Ginger Luckey, Bridget Luckey, and Roxanne Luckey. His father worked at a car dealership. His hobbies as a child included sailing lessons, electronics, and engineering, as well as community college courses at Golden West College and Long Beach City College.



Starting at age 14 or 15, he began taking courses at California State University, Long Beach, and in 2010, he wrote and served as an online editor for the university's student-run newspaper.


During his childhood and adolescence, he experimented with a variety of complex electronic projects, including guns, Tesla coils, and lasers, some of which resulted in serious injuries. He built a gaming computer rig worth tens of thousands of dollars with an extended six-monitor setup. His desire to immerse himself in worlds created by computers led to an obsession with virtual reality (VR), a concept that had not received significant attention from the technology industry in over a decade.


In an effort to learn more about VR technology, Luckey built an extensive personal collection of over 50 VR goggles from the past, most of which were built in the 1990s (the last VR crash of my childhood). 


At the age of 16, he began building VR goggles of his own design. To fund these projects, he earned at least $36,000 by repairing and reselling damaged iPhones and working part-time as a field manager, youth sailing coach, and computer repair technician.


In 2009, he co-founded the ModRetro forums, creating an online community for "portablize," a hobby centered on turning old hardware devices like game consoles and computers into self-contained laptops by mixing old and new technology.He later attended California State University, Long Beach, where he studied journalism and served as the online editor of the Daily49er. 


During his time there, he also worked part-time as an engineer at the Mixed Reality (MxR)13 Lab at the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) at the University of Southern California as part of an experimental VR design team. While Palmer took his time growing up, I waited years for VR to come back, until life and the reality we know pushed the memories and dreams of VR to the corner.


The years passed and passed, and then a few years ago, a small article in the newspaper about a guy building a VR helmet in his garage. The guy named Palmer Luckey, as I already explained to you, presented VR goggles that he built in the garage and gave them the name Oculus - which is actually a window to another world.


In order to finance his glasses after failing to bring investors, Palmer launched his Oculus glasses project on Kickstarter.Luckey was frustrated with the lack of capability of the existing VR goggles on the market, which had very low resolution, low field of view, high cost, and weighed like a small elephant. In order to try to solve the problem, he began experimenting with his own designs in 2009. 


He completed his first prototype, called PR1, at the age of 17 in his parents' garage in 2010. The VR goggles he built featured a 90-degree field of view, low latency, and built-in positional feedback.


Luckey developed a series of prototypes testing features such as stereoscopic 3D, wireless technology, and an extreme 270-degree field of view, while reducing the size and weight of his systems. He shared regular updates on his progress on forums visited by a small number of VR enthusiasts. His sixth-generation unit was called "RIFT," which was intended to be sold as a do-it-yourself kit. He launched the project on the Kickstarter website for crowdfunding in April 2012.


Oculus Rift CV1 was the first commercial VR goggles created by Oculus VR. The commercial goggles appeared shortly after the developer models DK1, DK2 that preceded them.John Carmack, a software developer and game developer known for his work on the Doom and Quake video game series, requested to order VR goggles from Luckey, who lent them to Carmack for free. Carmack used them to demonstrate the power of VR Doom 3: BFG Edition at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo. With the attention of thousands of people suddenly drawn to VR, Luckey soon dropped out of college to focus on VR full-time.


Early History:

The first VR headset was invented in 1965 by Ivan Sutherland. Sutherland's headset used a cathode ray tube to display images, and it required a large computer to run. VR technology continued to develop in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was still too expensive and complex for most consumers.



The 1990s:

The 1990s saw a renewed interest in VR. Several companies released VR headsets, including Sega and Nintendo. However, these headsets were not successful, due to high prices, low-quality graphics, and limited content.


The 2000s:

VR development slowed down in the 2000s, but it did not stop completely. Several companies continued to research VR technology, and some released early prototypes.


The 2010s:

The 2010s saw a resurgence of interest in VR. In 2012, Palmer Luckey, a 19-year-old college student, built a VR headset in his garage. Luckey's headset was a success, and he raised $2.4 million on Kickstarter to fund its development.In 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $2 billion. Facebook's investment helped to accelerate the development of VR technology.


The Present:

Today, VR is a rapidly growing technology. Several companies, including Oculus, HTC, Sony, and Valve, sell VR headsets. VR is being used for gaming, entertainment, education, and training.



The Future:

The future of VR is bright. VR technology is becoming more affordable, powerful, and accessible. As VR technology continues to develop, we can expect to see even more innovative applications for VR.


Conclusion:

Virtual reality is a powerful technology that has the potential to change the way we interact with the world around us. As VR technology continues to develop, we can expect to see even more amazing things in the years to come.


Back to the year 2042 my god, what's going on here? Am I in a VR game or what?

The day-to-day reality in this universe is not so great right now. On the other hand, in the VR universe, miracles are happening, endless worlds are being built nonstop, and more and more people are experiencing this amazing philosophical matrix.


The revolution made by the Oculus Quest VR glasses, now called Meta Quest after Facebook died (Facebook rebranded to Meta) gave the push that was enough to make this thing called virtual reality become a reality and mature. 

In time, more and more people will realize that in the future, the machines work and humanity lives in virtual reality.


Why did Oculus succeed where everyone else failed throughout history?

There were clear and unsurprising reasons for this. So, very briefly and let's move on, the processing power that exists today is significantly stronger than what existed in the past.Devices are very small today and are getting smaller all the time. In the future, 6G will already be able to connect you wirelessly to virtual reality, similar to Neo, without any devices or equipment, just your brain in a dream state, feeling and sensing everything. It's just a matter of when.


The article was written by Amit Caesar


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