P3D Simuleyes Clearance/Costco

[Bob Wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought I'd mention that at the local Costo (Price Club) store,
the Stereographics Simuleyes LCS glasses are being cleared at $50,
which includes the control box, glasses, and CD ROM with 5 (old)
games (circa 1995). They are moving relatively briskly (somewhat
suprising?) - They probably sold 3 or 4 units here in 4 hours or so
between the time I was first there and when I went back later on in
the afternoon. These appear brand new, still shrink wrapped and never
been opened (unlike the Snappy "clearance" they just had at full
mail order retail, and being two generations back, AND being really shopworn).
The Snappys all disappeared simultaneously after being on the shelf
for awhile (not selling) - I wonder where they went (landfill?).

I had a bit of trouble installing the software so it would work under
Win 95 and of course it's a bummer that at this point that it won't work
on my Mac (although they say that the APPLE gamesocket protocol will
allow this eventually). 

But it does seem to work reasonably well (for the price) and gives a
"full screen" display (unlike the Cybershades from a year or so ago).

One  potentially interesting application is that a "plug in" for
Netscape is available thru their www site, although it also has to
run on a PC - I've not tried that yet.

They have an interesting system which solves a number of problems
with standards and so forth. They paint a longer/shorter white line
at the very bottom of the displayable part of the picture which the decode
box looks for. If that's missing, you get no shutter action. If it's
present, you get either left or right as appropriate. Thus as long as
you can generate those lines, the decoder should work. 

Of course I'm a sucker for these kinds of systems. I've got two
of the Sega Glasses, one CyberShades, and now a SImuleyes. However,
since the Simuleyes has jacks for 4 pairs of glasses, it will be
interesting to see how compatible the other brands may be.

Don't forget to buy the necessary AA batteries to run the control
box (4). I forgot and tried with some fairly worn out batteries
and it didn't perform too well, but with a new set it looked ok.

The flicker isn't *that* bad, but the display is fairly dark, and
they do note that subdued lighting is recommended, due to the low
tranmission factor of the LCDs.

FWIW ...

               Bob Wier
         mailto:wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  05:16 PM  Monday, November 17, 1997
     Rocky Mountain College, Billings MT.
 keeper of the Photo-3d and Overland-Trails
mailing lists and the USA GPS Waypoint server 



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