From: galt@dsd.es.com (Greg Alt - Perp)
Subject: How about VR on $1 a day?
Date: Mon, 20 May 91 00:29:04 GMT
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, UT


Apparently biggest expense was just the display and position
tracker.  The display was $1500 (2X$750) and the position 
tracker was $3000.  The voice input isn't too important, and 
could probably be done with a soundblaster card for only $150.
The glove is very cheap, but the interface is ugly.
In the paper, they said that resolution wasn't important and 
that 320x200 is good enough.  They also said that stereo wasn't 
necessary.  This being the case, wouldn't it be easy to use a
cheap ($100-$200) lcd display and hang it in front of someone's
face?  Then, it would be necessary for some sort of position 
tracker.  I still think that a power glove mounted backwards on
the head would be a cheap alternative.  It apparently has high
enough resolution, but possibly too big of a lag.  I would be 
willing to settle on the more limited movement (and even the lack
of up/down head rotation).  
 
A system like this would cost between $300 and $500 which is less
than $.50 per day for 3 years (less than many students spend on 
video games).  
(also, I think that it would be unecessary to get an 80387 since
the matrix manipulation could easily be done with fixed point
math using the fast 386 integer math)
      Greg