FORTE VFX-1 HEADGEAR Virtual-Reality system.

The Forte VFX-1 was an early attempt at producing an immersive head-mounted display for consumer virtual-reality applications. The VFX-1 was first announced in mid 1994 and expected to retail for around £400. Initial interest was high with many PC-Gaming oriented magazines reviewing the development units.

While many uses of the VFX-1 for reasearch were suggested, the units were essentially marketed towards the blossoming PC gaming market. At the time, the kind of games suited to the VFX-1 would have be first-person shooters and flight simulators. Indeed, the production units are believed to have shipped with id Software's 'Doom' and Bioforge's 'System-Shock' as bonus software.

The VFX-1 could be described as having been 'keenly-priced' at the time and had a comparable hardware specification to many other HMDs that were on the market at the same time but which could cost £20,000 or more.

Description

The VFX-1 was a full-size 'helmet' worn directly on the head complete with ear-phones (stereo) and a flip-up visor containing dual optics and displays. The flip-up visor enclosed the user's eyes entirely to improve 'immersion' and the headphones completely enclosed the users ear's. On most models, it appears that the IPD (Inter-Pupilary Distance) could be altered by sliding both optics complete with their respective displays along a track in the visor. While this seems to be the case for most of the production units, there is photographic evidence on the web that some VFX-1 units had no IPD adjustment with the optics fixed to the visor's inner-plate. The unit was finished in black ABS plastic with foam trims for the ear-cups and the headband. Bright yellow Forte logos adorned the headphones and the VFX-1 logo was emblazoned on the visor. The overall design was decidedly futuristic looking perhaps like an unusual black space-helmet. Two connectors protruded from the underside of the back of the helmet, one for a cable linking back to the PC for audio/video and tracking, the other leading to the 'Cyber-puck' which was a small device rather like a mouse, held in the users hand.

The 'cyber-puck' provided tracking and buttons to control actions within the game or virtual environment. Two versions of the cyber-puck are known to exist, the earlier ones were a black-abs plastic box with buttons on one side and a velcro strap to hold the box to the users hand. Thes early cyber-pucks were probably 'off-the-shelf' junction boxes and seem to have only shipped with development systems and may also have been known as the 'cyber-bat'. The later cyber-puck was a roughly circular box resembling an ice hockey-puck and had ergonomic shaping on one side for the user's finger and access to the buttons provided. The cyberpuck also acted as a 2-axis joystick which, by tilting, could control movement within a game.

Technical

The VFX-1 came as three seperate components, the HMD itself, the Cyberpuck and an ISA card which would need to be installed within the user's PC. The VFX-1 also required that the PC's video card have a fully-compliant VESA feature connector available to connect to the ISA card within the machine. The ISA card would then be connected via an external connector leading to the VFX-1 HMD, the same lead would have a 'break-out' dual jack lead to connect to a headphone and microphone socket on a soundcard. The lead from the ISA card connected directly into the back of the VFX-1 and in turn, another lead connected from the back of the VFX-1 to the Cyberpuck. The VFX-1 needed no extra power supply as all power was provided via the ISA card.

The VFX-1 itself contained a 6-DOF (degrees of freedom) head-tracker which could track roll, pitch, yaw, front-back and lateral movement. This tracking was provided by inertial sensors thought to be built into the back of the unit. The headphones which were an integral component of the helmet were quite simple stereo units. At the front on the helmet, the flip-up visor contained a pair of plastic-lensed optics which were fixed to a pair of LCD displays. The displays themselves had 182,000 effective pixels and could display approximately 320x200 pixel images natively in 256 colours. Video input from the PC could be accepted in resolutions up to 640x480. These display are thought to have been produced by Epson, were of the 'active-matrix' or TFT type and were fitted in such a way that they could be removed and upgraded at a later date. The displays on most units were mounted so they could be slid along a rail to adjust IPD and also for independent focus.

The cyberpuck, like the VFX-1 contained inertial trackers but only in 2 axis so the cyberpuck would be used like a joystick, held in mid-air. The buttons worked simply as the buttons on a joystick normally would. With the VFX-1 being capable of tracking your movements through a full 360 degress (and more) of yaw and with cables running to both the cyberpuck and the PC, there was a very real risk that you could unwittingly 'tie yourself in a knot'.

First year on sale	1994
Price	~£400-£500
Resolution	182,000 pixels each eyepiece
Weight	~1.1KG
Tracking	6-DOF Inertial
Stereo video feed	Frame-Sequential

Was it any good?

The system was, in my opinion pretty good for the time. The comparatively low price was a good starting point and the then high-tech TFT displays provided an adequate resolution for game-play. The head tracking was on a par with most systems at the time. The latency in tracking was noticeable but not intolerable. The unit felt quite 'substantial' on your head at approx 1.1KG in weight but you would be suffering from the classic HMD eye-strain induced headaches long before your neck became sore.

While the concept was good, it was unfortunately before its time. In 1994, the 486 was the staple system and video cards were in their infancy. The requirement of frame-sequential video to provide the independent displays meant the need for the VESA feature connector which was not often correctly supported on most video cards.

Sales were probably nowhere near as good as Forte had hoped and indeed, Forte seemed to disappear a year or so later along with the VFX-1. The VFX-1 was later revived as the VFX-3D with new optics and no need for an ISA card but this system seems not to have been sold in great numbers.

Consumer VR could probably go further now in the first decade of the 21^st century with games like Doom3 to boost the eye-candy and immersive-excitement factor and with people regularly paying over £250 for video cards alone, a modernised VFX-1 might do well. It seems however that the manufacturers have lost any interest in Virtual Reality and a reasonably priced HMD is nowhere to be found.

Can you still buy a VFX-1?

It is unlikely that you will find a Forte VFX-1 or even a VFX3D for sale in a shop. There is a chance that you may find an example on ebay but these too are few and far between. The VFX-1 can sell on ebay with a price from £50 all the way up to £200 but you should bear in mind that, at least for the VFX-1, both a PC running DOS with an ISA slot and a video card with a fully VESA compliant feature-connector will be required. It is wise to check before you buy that the ISA card and the driver software is included.

Does the Museum of Interesting Tech have a VFX-1 in its real-life collection?

Yes, we have a prototype / development VFX-1 in our collection. While we have had some success in getting it working, we lack the actual development drivers and as such, we get some unexpected problems. The VFX-1 we have is in good condition and we hope to add some detailed photographs to this article soon.