[HN Gopher] Sega 3-D Glasses: How did they work?
___________________________________________________________________
Sega 3-D Glasses: How did they work?
Author : robin_reala
Score : 65 points
Date : 2023-04-11 07:24 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nicole.express)
(TXT) w3m dump (nicole.express)
| computronus wrote:
| My favorite project ever in undergraduate was getting these
| glasses to work with a PC. We got the specs (pun intended) from
| online resources and a how-to VR book published at the time
| (mid-90s). My partner designed / assembled the circuit board to
| interface the glasses to the PC's serial port, and I wrote a
| display driver that would switch video pages and simultaneously
| trigger the glasses to flip shutters. The result was 3D on a PC
| screen.
|
| The demo program was a robotic arm simulator that my partner
| already had on hand, since it could easily render wireframes. The
| updated simulator rendered two wireframes of Optimus Prime, so
| with the driver in place, he floated in front of the screen.
|
| And, of course, you could rotate him in space, and then hit the
| space bar to transform him in 3D.
| binarymax wrote:
| I had the (dis)pleasure of using these as a kid. Gave me a wicked
| headache.
|
| But awesome writeup! Reading how they worked I finally understand
| _why_ I got the headache :)
| allenu wrote:
| Did you ever try plying them without the glasses? Now that's a
| headache!
|
| I had a Master System as a kid and was disappointed when I
| purchased Maze Hunter 3D and brought it home only to find I
| could not play it without the glasses. No wonder they were
| discounted.
|
| However, I did read in a book that Space Harrier 3D had an
| Easter egg that allowed you to disable the 3D feature, but you
| had to get on the high score screen to execute the code. I
| ended up buying that at a discount. I got quite good at getting
| through the first level of the game without the 3D glasses.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Zaxxon 3D also let you turn off the 3D. Not sure why all the
| games didn't. There's no good way to play them today without
| the peripheral and a CRT.
| cholmon wrote:
| I had a Master System as well, but my glasses broke early on
| in my ownership, so I played Maze Hunter, Blade Eagle, and
| Missile Defnce without them. Eventually, I got accustomed to
| the odd look of everything being slightly doubled. When I
| finally got a new pair of glasses that worked, the 3D
| gameplay felt so odd that I preferred playing without them.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Hey, at least you got to experience the ... _puts on shades_...
| Segaverse.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| >240p is fake and a lie, but close enough for us
|
| I want to know more :) and my googling skills are failling me.
| But I didn't even realize you could do 240p/60hz on a CRT. To be
| honest I even assumed that CRT more or less means interlaced for
| some reason...
|
| Edit: ok, I should've clicked the links in the article! This page
| pretty much completely answers my questions!
|
| https://nicole.express/2021/interlace-me-not.html
| ytreyrty wrote:
| will 3D/VR ever really become mainstream? i recently bought a
| PSVR2, the tech seemed amazing but i had to return it due to
| horrible motion sickness. we're at almost 30 years of the tech
| still not being ready for prime time.
| edent wrote:
| Not until they overcome the need for the viewer to do
| _something_.
|
| Moving from mono sound to stereo doesn't require anything of
| the listener. Going from black and white to colour doesn't
| require you wear special equipment.
|
| But 3D? You have to put on special glasses which you also have
| to remember to charge. Oh, and you can't look at other things
| while you're using them.
|
| There were some passive 3D displays (the Nintendo 3DS and a few
| early Android phones) but they required the user to stay in
| exactly the right position, or the illusion was destroyed. So
| you couldn't easily share the experience with a friend.
|
| Until we have TVs which can shoot lasers directly into our
| eyeballs, I think the barrier to entry is too high.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| These kinds of VR headsets don't need to be charged (they are
| wired) and you can press a button to see the real world
| through the cameras.
| edent wrote:
| So now I need to be physically tethered to my seat?
|
| Do I press the button on the left or the right? Is it one
| tap to see the real world or two?
| dweekly wrote:
| Note there are several active participants in the equipment-
| free 3D display space: usually by building head tracking (so
| the display is "single player" - can only accommodate one
| viewer at a time) and clever separated left eye / right eye
| projection.
|
| EDIT: Apparently ASUS has a laptop that does this too!
| https://www.asus.com/content/asus-spatial-vision-technology/
| ytreyrty wrote:
| yeah on the VR side apparently im supposed to undertake a
| training regimen to be able to tolerate it without feeling
| sick. this is on top of the already massive commitment of
| wearing a giant helmet on my head. of course none of this is
| mentioned on the product page. (to be fair sony has a very
| generous return policy on these, probably for that reason)
|
| it's unfortunate because VR GT7 was really cool until i
| started feeling horrible, but the sickness was very strong
| like from riding on a spinning carnival ride. i had to lie
| down the rest of the evening each time it happened.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| They should include a package of strong ginger candies in
| the box.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| The New 3DS has eye tracking and doesn't require you to stay
| in one spot. It's still single-user, but it is significantly
| more stable than the original 3DS.
| vlunkr wrote:
| The other thing about mono->stereo and monochrome->color is
| that they were backwards compatible. And even when creators
| adopted the new style, they didn't fundamentally change what
| they were doing.
|
| With VR, the majority of popular games can't be ported 1:1 to
| VR. It either adds nothing so it's not worth it, or motion
| sickness requires removing or reinventing movement. It's
| almost like starting game design over from scratch.
| vlunkr wrote:
| It's very popular right now, but it's really hard to tell if
| it's just a fad. Motion controls had a huge wave of popularity
| starting with the Wii, but that died off. It will be
| interesting to see.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Motion controls had a huge wave of popularity starting with
| the Wii, but that died off.
|
| is there a consensus to why this is? was it just a fad/phase,
| or is it just too physically demanding so people literally
| and figuratively tired of it?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| With Wii Sports, it somewhat felt like you were doing the
| correct action for the associated sport. With every other
| game, and Wii Sports after the novelty wore off, it felt
| like a clunky input method that usually led to mindlessly
| waggling the remote around.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Zelda's bow mechanic was fun. Sword fighting too. The
| switch controls feel drab in comparison, I can't really
| get into Breath of the Wild the same I did Skyward Sword
| or Twilight Princess.
| ytreyrty wrote:
| skyward sword was basically unplayable for me until the
| switch version with normal controls came out. i never was
| even able to get past the 2nd dungeon with motion
| controls.
|
| i do like the games where you can use motion controls of
| the controller to enhance your aiming.
| bullen wrote:
| The PSVR2 has persistence problems due to the pancake lenses
| taking up too much light. Basically the strobing can't be short
| enough (to not induce smear) because that would dim the picture
| too much. It makes everyone sick.
|
| The top of the line is still Quest 2, the display (120Hz) and
| fresnel lenses are better than most more expensive
| alternatives.
|
| And with DAS FrankenQuest you have comfort.
|
| Unfortunately Echo VR (the ONLY native game) closes in August!
|
| I do not expect the Quest 3 to deliver much benefit over the 2.
| Maybe the Quest 3 lite they are talking about.
|
| Surprisingly the Quest 2 is still DDR4 and has the same GFLOP
| as a 1030.
| [deleted]
| havblue wrote:
| I think people usually realize how pointless and uncomfortable
| it is every time they try it.
|
| "When you look at a 2-D movie, it's already in 3-D as far as
| your mind is concerned. When you see Lawrence of Arabia growing
| from a speck as he rides toward you across the desert, are you
| thinking, 'Look how slowly he grows against the horizon'? Our
| minds use the principle of perspective to provide the third
| dimension. Adding one artificially can make the illusion less
| convincing."
|
| -Roger Ebert: Why I Hate 3D Movies
| https://www.newsweek.com/roger-ebert-why-i-hate-3d-movies-70...
| Twirrim wrote:
| I don't remember who produced them, but I had a pair of active
| shutter 3D glasses back in something like 2000, maybe? I think
| they were Elsa Revelators.
|
| All I remember of them was that when they worked they were
| brilliant, albeit a little dim. Mostly all they did, though, was
| expose all the shortcuts developers took, particularly with UI
| elements. Everything in the scene would be wonderful 3D, but the
| UI elements would be all over the place, distorted, etc. etc.
| genpfault wrote:
| Not loading for me; archive: https://archive.is/hjChf
| gwbas1c wrote:
| One thing I wish is that the parts of the 3d image were also
| side-by-side instead of (or in addition to) moving.
|
| I trained myself to look at these kinds of things cross-eyed so I
| can see the 3d effect without glasses.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Even just speeding up the flicker would induce a more 3d
| effect.
| efnx wrote:
| I wish there were more sites like Nicole express. Great job with
| the break down.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-04-11 23:00 UTC)