Sword-of-damocles: Difference between revisions

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-<![CDATA[
-<p>
-<strong>
-The Sword of Damocles AKA The Virtual Sword of Damocles [related: Ivan Sutherland, Vannevar Bush, DARPA, ARL,
-HMD]
-</strong>
-<br/>
-The Sword of Damocles Computer Science Project (SDCSP) was a virtual reality-based research project featuring the
-world's first
-<a href="../hyperbolic-time-chamber/white-cube-o-death.html">
-Head Mounted Display (HMD)
-</a>
-. Debuting in 1960, the SDCSP precursed the eventual development of functional
-VR technology by almost 40 years. The project was led by Ivan Sutherland
-<sup>
-</sup>
-, creator of the SketchPad™, and
-his team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Sutherland's system involved an
-ingenious combination of rudimentary computer graphics, stereoscopic lensing, hand-sautered electronics, plastic
-tubing and cosmetic mirrors - along with specially-made sensor gloves
-<sup>
-</sup>
-to track the user's movements.
-Following the unveiling of its initial prototype, the SDCSP received seed funding from the Defense Advanced Research
-Projects Agency (DARPA) and, later, the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) under contract with
-[[error]]
-for use in aerial weaponry development and aviation training.
-</p>
-<p>
-<img alt="" class="wikiImg" src="/static/images/wiki/damocles-img-1.png"/>
-</p>
-<p>
-Due to the low processing power available at the time, the computational control system used by Sutherland's team was
-gargantuan, weighing over 3,500 pounds - roughly equivalent to half the helicopter on which it was to be housed.
-Occupying over 500 square feet, the SDCSP's central controls generated temperatures upwards of 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
-The project's military participants were subjected to a variety of grueling simulations, including helicopter and
-airplane crashes, shipwrecks, and other disasters - resulting in waves of nausea and heat stroke. The project made
-significant progress until it was eventually shut down in 1974 after a slew of technical difficulties and participant
-complaints/threatened litigation. Overall, the SOD was estimated by
-[[error]]
-to have
-cost approximately $52 million and was, at the time of its discontinuation, widely considered to be a failure. The
-SDCSP was somewhat satirically named after a
-[[error]]
-in which the (likely
-apocryphal) miscreant Damocles was briefly seated on the throne of Dionysius only to find a heavy sword strung
-gingerly above his head - an analogous reference to the bulky and extremely ponderous equipment employed in
-Sutherland's HMD.
-</p>
-<div class="footnote">
-<p>
-<sup>
-</sup>
-Commonly considered to be the father of computer graphics.
-<br/>
-<sup>
-</sup>
-Later known as haptic feedback gloves - now used in a variety of applications including the
-[[nes]]
-'s
-[[error]]
-.
-<br/>
-<img alt="" class="wikiImg" src="/static/images/wiki/damocles-img-2.jpg"/>
-</p>
-<p>
-<sup>
-</sup>
-An American inventor known primarily for role in the
-[[error]]
-alongside the mystic physicist
-[[error]]
-. Bush's 1945 essay "As We May
-Think"
-<sup>
-</sup>
-foreshadowed the development of both virtual reality and the lexicographical aspects of the
-internet (and the subsequent wave of information overload4). Regarding the former, Bush claimed:
-</p>
-<p class="pointfive">
-<em>
-"The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the very existence of
-matter. Atom by atom. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such
-a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be, if fired, fatal."
-</em>
-</p>
-<p>
-<sup>
-</sup>
-Sutherland credited Bush's fictional (and comically complex) Memex device for the Sketchpad™'s initial
-conception.
-<br/>
-<sup>
-</sup>
-A term that Bush, in fact, coined.
-</p>
-<p>
-Ref#
-<em>
-[[sword-of-damocles]]
-</em>
-.
-</p>
-</div>
-]]>

Revision as of 21:43, 8 March 2024