HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: glick_jer@ccsua.ctstateu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: NEED HELP: getting started
Date: 20 Dec 92 00:40:35 GMT
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


I am new to the computer world, and VR world.  I'm planning on getting a 486
before the end of the year.  Is this suiable for VR?? I hear all of this stuff
about amigas being better. 

If a 486 is good enough, what do you need to get VR working??  Do you need to
be a total hardware junky or a programmer (soon to be).

I like ball park figures and don't need exact figures although they are nice
to.

If you know any answers to theese quesetions then please Mail me. becuase I
don't read the USENET all of the time and will miss your message.  thanks.

jeremy glick
(203) 224-3619
Glick_jer@ccsua.ctstateu.edu   /* (internet)*/
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: jlb31348@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jim Brain)
Subject: TECH: U o' I last update o' the semester
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 01:13:26 GMT


Well, like the title says, I am shutting down regular updates (no flak
about how they were NOT regular) till January.  The PGSI is the first
thing I intend to work on when I get home, so I may make some kind of
posting detailing progress.  The main reason I will not be posting is
that I live 40 miles away, and the term server calls to U o' I will
cost plenty.  It IS Long distance.  Won't be reading mail much, so ask
questions before next Thursday night.

Ah, it is GOOOD to be done with projects.  I am vegging tonight, since I have 
beem up most nights prior to this one getting projects done.  But it is to be
no more.   

Questions:   When does svw.apps go up ?
Does anyone have a list of the commands for the Gold Brick, or any other
interfaces.
Any other projects worth my attention (I signed up for a projects class nex
semester.
Did VPL REALLY go under ?

That is all fo' now.  (I have a fetish with the "'" key tonoght, don't worry.

Jim  Brain (Who has only 6 hours of class next semester!!)


-- 
Jim Brain                           "If you build it, they will come."
brain@cs.uiuc.edu
Senior, Computer Engineering                                    Field of Dreams
PowerGlove Serial Interface Designer and Co-Project Leader.                     
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign       Dox available on request

[Answer: svw.apps appears to be in working order and ready to roll, 
        but I believe that we won't actually begin discussion until
        the beginning of the new year.
                ---Mark
]
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: gaspode@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Stirley)
Subject: Re: YAPGR: Powergloves / Glasses in UK ?
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 12:56:49 GMT


etlprnw@etlxd30.ericsson.se (peter new xd/gke x.4621 ) writes:


>Does anyone know if the Nintendo powergloves or Sega 3D glasses are
>(or were) available in the UK ? If not, would anyone who has access to
>some be able to get some for me. Alternatively, where are they
>available in Baltimore ? (I have a friend going there soon !) All help
>would be greatly appreciated. Please reply via this newsgroup or email
>me etlprnw@etlxd30.ericsson.se.

I managed (finally) to get hold of a Nintendo Power glove from a company
called 'Rhine Games' on the Edgware Road in London. I have their full address
and phone number at home, which I'll post here tomorrow (if I remember :)

>Thanks,
No problem.

>Peter New..

Si.

JANET       : gaspode@uk.ac.warwick.dcs          |     oo     | S.Stirley
BITNET/EARN : gaspode%uk.ac.warwick.dcs@ukacrl   |     \/     | Uni of Warwick
INTERNET    : gaspode%dcs.warwick.ac.uk          |AKA Gaspode | Coventry, UK
UUCP        : ..!mcsun!uknet!warwick!gaspode, gaspode@warwick.UUCP
From: diego@minerva.st.dsi.unimi.it (Diego Montefusco)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: SCI: Direct Neural-Electronic Interfacing
Date: 12 Dec 92 23:13:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec13.030327.14016
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


In <9212100952.AA29789@ghost.dsi.unimi.it>, on Dec 9, you wrote:

> From: sheng@mings4.cc.monash.edu.au (Ms X. Sheng)
> Subject: Re: SCI: Direct Neural-Electronic Interfacing
> Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1992 00:23:22 GMT
> Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
> 
> 
> mauah@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr I D Bygrave) writes:
> 
> 
> I heard somewhere, Beyond 2000 maybe ?, that a group of scientists have
> developed a device for blind people.  What they do is directly connect
> a video camera to their visual nerves (forgive my lack of bio knowledge)
> so the blind people can actually 'see' thru the camera.  So, hook the camera
> up to a pc, and there you have it, an neural interfaced HMD.

Sounds EASY... it makes me wonder why there aren't such devices in toy
stores!

It is a pity you didn't read that they have just got to the point of letting
blind see flashes of light or colours and, for example, a big stripe...
One of the worst thing in todays HMD is poor resolution: this way we could
make it even worst!!

Diego


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Diego Montefusco                        B E W A R E ! !
  Via Pirano, 4                        PLEASE REPLY ME TO:
  20127 Milano                    montefus@ghost.dsi.unimi.it
    ITALIA                           (not to the account
phone:  +2  27001467                 I'm e-mailing from!)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: specdyn@well.sf.ca.us (Spectrum Dynamics Inc.)
Subject: TECH: EyePhone Service
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 00:52:05 GMT


**** PRESS RELEASE ****

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPECTRUM DYNAMICS, INC.

For additional information, contact:
Gregory M. Klein, 713/520-5020


SPECTRUM DYNAMICS ANNOUNCES

SERVICE SUPPORT ON VPL EYEPHONES


Houston, TX --December 18, 1992--SPECTRUM DYNAMICS, INC. announces
it will begin servicing and repairing VPL EyePhones.  Spectrum
Dynamics will fill the service void brought about by the current
restructuring at VPL.  Service on the VPL EyePhones will be
headed-up by Todd Parsons (VP Design and Marketing - Spectrum
Dynamics, Inc.) and Mike Zerkus (VP Research and Development -
Spectrum Dynamics, Inc.).

Todd Parsons was formerly a contract employee at VPL Research and
was the chief designer and manufacturer of the housing on many of
VPL's original EyePhone designs.

Mike Zerkus serves part-time as a research scientist with Krug
International .  In that capacity he has worked extensively with
HMDs on a contractual basis with NASA's Johnson Space Center.

The EyePhone support being offered by Spectrum Dynamics includes
maintenance service, feature additions, and repair on the housing,
optics, and electronics.  Service is billable at $75.00/hour+parts.
Service on other VR products in general and VPL products in
particular are also offered pending consultation with the
prospective client.  Spectrum Dynamics personnel are also
experienced in working with and modifying position-tracking
technology and haptic-feedback systems.

[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  Commercial postings are offered on sci.virtual-worlds
as a public service.  Their appearance here does not necessarily indicate
endorsement by the moderators or by the USENET or its administrators. --
Mark A. DeLoura]
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: larryv@msen.com (Larry Vingelman)
Subject: PUBL: Virtual Reality News
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:14:00 GMT


Attention VR Insiders:
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 --6 VR Packed Issues Plus Special VR Extras--
 
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give our readers only what they want to read,
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platform for VR companies to advertise their
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At the present time we are offering a very large
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Our special subscription rate is $69, thats $41
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Editor, Virtual Reality News
 
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               VIRTUAL REALITY NEWS
32969 Hamilton Ct #215, Farmington Hills, MI 48334
      (313) 488-0330  -  Fax (313) 488-0337
--------------------------------------------------
|-------> The Future Is Here, Virtually! <-------|
--------------------------------------------------

[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  Commercial postings are offered on sci.virtual-worlds
as a public service.  Their appearance here does not necessarily indicate
endorsement by the moderators or by the USENET or its administrators. --
Mark A. DeLoura]
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: d89-tre@nada.kth.se (Thierry Reigner)
Subject: INFO?: Information request
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 12:16:49 GMT


Keywords: 

I am looking for the email address or regular address of the office or institute
or university or firm of Dean Rubine because I am interested in reading his
thesis on dynamic single-path gesture recognition.

Help will be gratefull.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
        Murphy was an optimist.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-   Reignier thierry                                                      -
-   email: d89-tre@nada.kth.se                                            -
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-   Department of numerical Analysis and Computing Science                -
-   Interpretation and Presentation Laboratory                            -
-   Royal Institute of Technology                                         -
-   S-100 44 Stockholm                                                    -
-   SWEDEN                                                                -
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: rwebb@nyx.cs.du.edu (Russell Webb)
Subject: Re: APPS: VR version of Wolf3d?
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 02:05:52 GMT


In article <jon.van.oast.1.0@med.umich.edu> jon.van.oast@med.umich.edu (Jon Van 
Oast) writes:
>i know this is taking the first step off-subject, so i will apologize now,
>BUT since i just have to say it: i really like wolf3d (of course), but
>i *HAVE* to beg the developers (if they are listening, or can have this
>passed on...): besides a vr-version, a novell netware version would
>be GREAT (and probably not too much extra code).

Jay Wilbur, the "Biz" representative for ID Software, frequently posts
to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.  He has announced "Doom", a new game based
on the Wolf3D engine (that is supposed to surpass Wolf by leaps and
bounds).  Doom is scheduled for release 3Q93, with multi-player
capabilities via modem, serial cable, and Novell networks (I believe).

Contact jwilbur@holonet.net for information, or keep an eye on comp.sys.
ibm.pc.games.  He seems quite open to comments and suggestions about
current and future ID products and almost unflaggingly responds to any
posting about ID software.  If you have ideas, it might be very beneficial
to pass them on to him.

-Russell
rwebb@nyx.cs.du.edu
From: diego@minerva.st.dsi.unimi.it (Diego Montefusco)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: INDUSTRY: FLASH! "VPL is dead, long live VPL . . ."
Date: 12 Dec 92 23:47:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec13.030405.14242
Organization: University of Washington
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


In <9212100947.AA29427@ghost.dsi.unimi.it>, on Dec 9, you wrote:

> From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
> Subject: Re: INDUSTRY: FLASH! "VPL is dead, long live VPL . . ."
> Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1992 05:42:38 GMT
> Organization: Nat'l Center for Supercomputing Applications
> 
> 
> So what's the focus of VR?  Creating virtual worlds or sealing off the
> real world?  Up until now the focus has been the latter.  Why?
> Because playing with gloves and goggles is much more fun, and a hell
> of a lot easier, than dealing with boring, stuffy things like
> databases, information representation, and physical and scientific
> simulations.  Is this good?  I think not.

I don't agree.
Using a GUI is a lot easier than dealing bith boring, stuffy things like
punch-cards or command line interfaces.
VR Interfaces are direct manipulation taken to the extreme. Why not implement
boring databases, info representation or simulations in a virtual environment
and make them easier, funnier, more productive?

I agree when talking about what the press and media have made to this 
technology, but I've liked Lanier...

Diego


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Diego Montefusco                        B E W A R E ! !
  Via Pirano, 4                        PLEASE REPLY ME TO:
  20127 Milano                    montefus@ghost.dsi.unimi.it
    ITALIA                           (not to the account
phone:  +2  27001467                 I'm e-mailing from!)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: dstampe@psych.toronto.edu (Dave Stampe)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: TECH: Neural Interfacing
Date: 13 Dec 92 04:33:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec14.014522.6624
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


chadwell@utkvx3.utk.edu (Chadwell, Leonard) writes:

>Sorry, Dave, but L. Pinneo at SRI DID use EEG systems to do cortical wave
>pattern matching to qive qualified thought pattern detection.  Running on a PDP
>in 1974, and a skull cap with electrodes (no shaving or such required), the 
>cursor on screen could be issued 7 commmands by thought:  UP,DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT,
>SLOW,FAST,STOP.  The main limitations on the system were the RAM (around 32K)
>and the speed of the processor.  The commands were merely thought, and the 
>system could accurately recognize the commands on 60% of the people who were
>tested on the system, and with modification to pattern matching code, could 
>also match those people.  With the progress made in raw computing power and 
>memory capacity, more commands could be recognized with greater accuracy.

I already know about this one.  But it's far less reliable than the 
blink type detection, and seems to have been confounded with other things.
Truth is , EEG is a LOT more complex than most people think-- in fact,
stuff like eye movements, facial muscle signals, and so on are hard to
eliminate in a case like this.  You could probably get the same thing
with simple electrodes around the eyes in this case.

It's simply not true that specific thoughts are associated with easily-
discriminated EEG patterns.  Certain _modes_ of processing, or reactions
to external events, are possible to detect because you're seeing waves 
of processing travel through the cortex. 

Potentially, you could train yourself by biofeedback to associate certain
commands with whatever gave an EEG signal detectable by the computer.
But I don't think that's what we're looking for.  


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| My life is Hardware,                    |         Dave Stampe          | 
| my destiny is Software,                 | dstampe@psych.toronto.edu    |
| my CPU is Wetware...                    | dstampe@sunee.uwaterloo.ca   | 
| Am I a techno-psychologist, or just an engineer dabbling in psychology?|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: x89olarte1@gw.wmich.edu
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: YAPGR: PowerGlove to PC:Cable connector.?Where
Date: 13 Dec 92 06:25:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: gw.1992Dec13.012346.6937
Organization: Western Michigan University
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


Does anybone know where to get the cord that connects the powerglove to
the PC??

Thanks a lot.

Enrique.
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: kaugust@caip.rutgers.edu (karin august)
Subject: MISC: VRASP Chat
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 01:40:25 GMT



   On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

                       a high rez H M D......

V R A S P  C H A T   (pizza?)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: jpc@tauon.ph.unimelb.edu.au (John Costella)
Subject: MEDIA: New promotional commercial featuring VR
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 04:25:42 GMT


The Australian popular science and technology show _Beyond_2000_
seems to have a new promotional commercial (if that what it is [?])
with a strong VR flavour.

There is a kid (10 y.o.?) wearing a big HMD, standing in a circular 
pen ...  I haven't quite followed the gist of the dialogue yet 
(only noticed the ad out of the corner of my eye). The gear seems 
to have been borrowed from the _Virtuality_ demo roaming the country, 
by the look of it (OK, short-sighted eyes at 10 feet :), and the 
voice-over says something to the effect of ``Welcome to Virtual 
Reality'' in a sort of Steven King-ish tone of voice. Then a 
_Beyond_2000_ logo appears at the bottom of the screen.

The ad is obviously meant to intrigue rather than inform, since
_Beyond_2000_ is, like just about everything else, running reruns
throughout this summer silly season when the ratings agency agrees
to ignore their little people-meters. It's not clear whether they
are advertising a re-run of an earlier programme, have some new
VR-oriented programmes in the making, or are simply jumping on the
bandwagon for the sake of advertising.

I *don't* think the ads are worth a great deal of discussion in
this group, but I know that there are many people out there
doing research (of one form or another) into how VR affects
society's values, how it is perceived, how it is portrayed in the
media, etc., and perhaps this example may be of interest to them.
If there is a sequel commercial (or if the meaning of the first 
becomes clearer) I will post the info.

The television network that produces _Beyond_2000_ is channel 7.
I'm not sure which city it is made in, but judging by the
personalities of the presenters, it is probably Sydney. For
those interested, I only have the Melbourne address, but they 
should be able to put you in touch with the relevant dept:

   HSV Channel 7 Pty Ltd,
   119 Wells Street,
   South Melbourne, Victoria 3205,
   Australia. 

        +61 3
   Tel: ----- 697-7777
         (03)

John Costella

Disc: I don't have anything to do with channel 7 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John P. Costella              School of Physics, The University of Melbourne
jpc@tauon.ph.unimelb.edu.au         Tel: +61 3 543-7795, Fax: +61 3 347-4783
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: bradw@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Brad Wyble)
Subject: TECH:  parts of Mac interface for PG
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 17:00:45 GMT


OOps, sorry, the actuall part is a MAX232 Unipolar RS-232 Line Driver/Receiver

Does anyone know where to get one?
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
From: Karin August <71033.702@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: MISC: VRASP Chat
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 03:36:53 GMT


On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
                three Fastracks, two Power Gloves and a high rez HMD.

VRASP Chat two blocks north of the train station.
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds