From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) Subject: Virtually Dead: The Grateful Dead VR Show, Part 1 Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1991 16:54:59 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle THE GRATEFUL DEAD VR SHOW From The WELL, vr and gd conferences by permission of the author, Alex Whitney (bltz@well.sf.ca.us). An online fantasy: The Grateful Dead give a rootin'-tootin' performance in a virtual world. I've deleted all of the online applause, which would drowned out Alex's own performance.... (In five parts, between 5-9K each.) Topic 78: Virtual shows. # 4: Alex Whitney (bltz) Fri, Jul 26, '91 (09:30) 141 lines The Virtual Show. David was getting pretty psyched for the show that evening. He had just spent 20 minutes moving the furniture out of the den so that they could dance without knocking everything over. He had busted the helmet cable last week when the overhead rig he had designed had tangled. He arranged some tubing up the wall of the den so that the helmet cables could hang from ceiling, presumably making it easier to dance around. You kinna weren't supposed to dance around in the helmets, according to the documentation. The documentation assumed that the owners were monks, and only used the helmet for Nintendo and Watching classical concerts. They had taken the "around" part a little too much fun. The tubes had been pulled from the ceiling. He had also turned down the bass in the helmets, fiddled with the color adjustments notthatyouneededtoheh, and hooked up his own subwoofer. It was on the inside corner of the L-shaped room. It was padded. It was also very loud. He didn't worry about disturbing the neighbors. The kindly matron in the house on the left thought it was "pretty", and the people to the right were heads. The headphones had some great frequency response curves, since some brilliant American software engineer had though of combining and equalizer and a computer with a microphone near the ear. But he liked the thunder of his primitive stereo better. He had the dolby boom box, and with the digital SPRINT Link, he could hear live Second Gen Digital sound through his home stereo synched by a technology called "Genlock" with the images transferred to the virtual reality goggles. The helmets were sitting on top of it. They were black. His was fanatical. Nancy's was excellent. His was a Senheiser (sic) VR-775. It had High-Quality Ruby Digital Laser Optics in 256 colors splayed on the surface of a half mirror goggle. Some German company made the mirror. They hadn't paid the sponsorship fee to appear in the story, though. It was black, had comfortable headphones that could be conveniently removed, or retracted from the ears up to two inches; he could pipe in outside sound. It had a mysterious cable designed by an intellectual California offshoot of Apple Computer, back in 1990. The cable velcro-ed down his back and down the back of his arms and legs. The cable ended at his wrists and ankles. It was customized to fit him. It transmitted a digital image of him to gdead.com at Club Front (where they were playing from tonight,) in three dimensions. Fingers, toes, everything. No one knew exactly how this was done, but the general scientific opinion concurred that it was something almost certainly having to do with Kirilian Auras. The helmet, including headphones, goggles, cables, and soft, foamy criss-cross bars that went across the top of his head to hold it on, weighed eight ounces. Hers was a less expensive unit, about half the price at $600 dollars. You could rent this helmet around the corner for ten dollars a night at Blockbuster VR and Video. In some ways, it had beter optics: It also used High-Quality Ruby Digtal Laser Optics , but in sixteen million colors. It had the same Weird velcro-ing cable that strapped onto the back like some monster out of a Heinlein novel that apparently worked on Kirillian aura. But it was heavier, and the sound wasn't as good, and the optics were not as sharp and not as easy to adjust, you had to go inside instead of having the controls right there on the outside and balanced at the touch of a button, like his did. And it wasn't all black. It had chrome. He hated chrome. And the goggles were BIG and looked like something a helicopter pilot would wear, while his were cool, and looked like something Arnold Schwarzzenager would wear in Terminator 2. The cable went from the top of the helmet, in a coil, to the center of the ceiling. From there it went through the tubes previously mentioned, and was hooked up to a Nakamichi Digital Cable Receiver. There was a VR recorder and a pair of blank tapes next to it. The digital cable receiver transmitted their image and sounds to Club Front, and transmitted Second Generation Digital quality sound, color images, and three dimensional movement of a kind back to the helmet. He wondered what the environment setting was tonight. It was Phil's thing to fuck with the environment that they danced around in. Last week Phil had them on a south Seas Island. The band had been playing on a section of the "beach" that had been flattened out to accommodate the piles of equipment and the Indian Rugs. Dave had always thought it curious that they decided to bring these along with them when they could create whatever reality they wanted. He had been so curious that he had wasted Phils time in the feedback section. Phil had replied that it made Jerry more comfortable when they were doing the stuff that had no virtual floor, like the outer space scenery. The week before that had been an underwater scene, which had made him seasick, probably filmed by Jerry in Hawaii with the 3-D camera. He wanted to see who was on-line at the WELL, so he doodled into the office,and fired up Microphone X on the Macintosh LC. He grumbled for the ten-thousandth time about it opening in Auditory mode as a default. If he wanted to listen to people blab endlessly, he could, but it took SOO long, and it seemed that the words always took longer to absorb. True, some more firm ideas of a speakers meaning were conveyed in auditory mode, what with inflection, but text was faster. Flames went by exceptionally quickly in text mode. He preferred to keep it textual, a little like someone who preferrered radio to television. He logged on. "Go," he said. The WELL instantly called him back and made sure the computer was his. It used the tiny camera to the right of the screen to check his retina pattern. It displayed a picture of a rainforest, and below it was the caption: Our rainforest. 10,000 Acres in Brazil. Congratulations, Wellites! "Godbyyyyyyyyye Picopsud!" He intoned, as usual. Then he said, "Tours, please." The screen did a long slow fade, and text splayed across the screen. Gans' background mix of the week played in Second Gen Digital, quietly. The camera watched his eye, keeping the text speeding along just ahead of his vision, encouraging him to read at a velocity that was perfect for him. A list of messages and various other information appeared, as well as three labeled graphic and two sound buttons. He wondered whether he had turned the stereo on. Yep. "Graphic 1?" A picture of the Underwater show appeared. A long, very slightly fuzzy seascape appeared, next to the reef, covered with brilliant white sand, and, the Indian Rugs and a few stacks of black boxes. "Play." The picture went into motion, and the Sound 1 button turned grey. Bob was playing Estimated Prophet, and making some goofy lyric about the burning shores up because, of course, they were underwater. "Text?" A voice which shall here remain anonymous said: "As you can see, the thin man still does it. Even underwater." The clip went on for about ten seconds, well under the fifteen second limit, and the screen cleared. There were three responses, and he gave the command to read through them. Most were unkind commentary, so he did not say again, and went on to the next topic. It was Garcia Band Shows, and had a graphic and sound. He wondered if it was the "Sitting Here In Limbo" clip he had asked for. He squinted at the label. Yep. It was from mud. Dave made no comment on the guy's new login. He probably felt bad enough already. He played the clip, which was a whole VR sequence. He saved it to disk for playback later. mud had been nice enough to mail a full three clips to get the whole solo in. To bad they didn't ever splice just right. mud promised a dub ASAP.... --