From: jpc@tauon.ph.unimelb.edu.au (John Costella)
Subject: Re: APPS: VR in Australia?
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 2:50:06 EST



About getting VR demos in Australia,

> All I can say is GOOD-LUCK! I have twice run interstate to try out the
> VIRTUALITY setups (once to sydney and once to melbourne) only to find
> I had just missed them. I had a contact number but I think I lost it.
> 
> If you do get a go, at that or manage to get in on an RMIT/CITRI
> demo day (they sometimes demo their setup) then give us a call.

Yes, the Virtuality demo was in Melbourne for a time. No, it WASN'T
advertised ANYWHERE, as far as I know. The guys running the demo said
that they are so flat out that no-one would dare advertise.  They are
choc-a-bloc with school groups every day. They were at Scienceworks,
and Scienceworks paid the Australian arm of the W crowd (Virtual
Reality Corporation, I think they are called) some $,000 a week for
the privilege. You have to fill in a form to get a go, and probably
wait an hour or two until the next `public' session (although you can
watch the school groups in the mean time).  You will get five minutes.
All this should be the same for their visits to other cities too.
Anyone know where they are right now?

I have heard that the Armpit (aRMpIT = RMIT pet name:-) have VR
seminars every now and again, in which you have to pay $70 though for
a few hours. They apparently do demos but whether you'd get a go is
another thing. Maybe someone down there could let us know?  I'd
imagine they must have a million people wanting to play with their
stuff, so it wouldn't be surprising if general public demos were out,
unless you happened to be the chairman of BHP.

There's been a regular flow of queries to my e-mail about where you
can try out VR in this country, so if anyone knows of anything set up,
a post would be helpful. You'd think someone would install a VR arcade
game in a permanent site and charge some exorbitant amount for a game
(yes, even $5 or $10), but to date I haven't heard of anything of this
sort. The Virtuality and other gear has been touring strictly as an
exhibition piece, and have all been sleeping-bag-level events if you
want a go.

So all you overseas VR arcade game entrpreneurs: why aren't you
milking Australians for $$$ when they'd be happy to pay for the
experience? We've got a population the size of New York State or
Texas, which isn't huge but still enough to make money off. And most
of those people are in four or five cities with a few million people
each.

Oh well, back to antipodean isolation,

John

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------