The First VR Headset Hung From the Ceiling

In 1968, computer scientist Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull built what the Computer History Museum calls “probably the first head-mounted stereoscopic display” — the ancestor of every modern virtual-reality and augmented-reality headset.

The device was nicknamed the “Sword of Damocles.” It earned the name because the apparatus was bulky enough that it had to be suspended from the ceiling on a large mechanical arm “to reduce the weight pressing on the wearer’s head.” That same overhead linkage did double duty: it tracked the user’s head movements so the picture could update as they looked around.

Through tiny screens, users saw a glowing wireframe cube floating in the room — and it shifted perspective as they moved.

The graphics were skeletal by today’s standards: simple wireframe shapes drawn by a computer and reflected onto half-silvered lenses, blending the virtual image with the real lab. Crude as it was, Sutherland’s contraption established the core idea behind today’s VR and AR — and it dangled from the rafters to do it.