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printz

Has anyone used Heretic's VIOHT.EXE (Virtual I/O i-glasses driver)?

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In my Heretic directory there's a notable executable called "VIOHT.EXE". Googling for this name led me to this page: http://www.gamers.org/games/heretic/ where it says "Added Virtual I/O i-glasses! support (run VIOHT.EXE to use i-glasses! Tracker)". There's also a YouTube video about this 1995 thing. So basically this is a VR headset.

Running "vioht /?" (from DOSBox) yields at the command line:

Heretic VIO Tracker Driver.
Usage: VIOHT [-vector 0x<vector>] [-com #]
        where: # is the COM port number (1-4).
Has anyone around here used this executable? Do you think it can be coupled with modern equivalent headsets? Apparently it talks through COM ports, which I guess can be abstracted to USB.

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Looks like it uses -externdriver, which is the Heretic equivalent of -control.

My guess is that the COM port input was translated into movement commands that let you turn left/right and look up/down to adjust your view. If you're viewing the game through the glasses then it probably gives something that is similar to what the Oculus Rift does nowadays, albeit far more crude.

Hexen has the externdriver code as well and you can probably make vioht.exe work with it too if you're dedicated enough and actually have a pair of these things.

One of these days I ought to extend ctrlapi to make it work with -externdriver as well.

Linguica said:

Does Chocolate Heretic support these?

Nope, obviously. This comes firmly under the category of "obsolete technology".

In a way I'd kind of like some day to provide functionality similar to what the -control / -externdriver APIs give, just for completeness. But without a pressing need to support a device that specifically needs it, it's probably never going to happen.

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I used it at a computer fare around that time for either Heretic or Hexen, it was really impressive and I felt like I was really there. It probably is one of the reasons why I'm nostalgic. :P I remember there being a long line of people waiting to play so you had one life and I sucked so I only played briefly before getting overwhelmed.

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fraggle said:

In a way I'd kind of like some day to provide functionality similar to what the -control / -externdriver APIs give, just for completeness. But without a pressing need to support a device that specifically needs it, it's probably never going to happen.

Could be emulated with the Oculus Rift ;)

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I was at an exhibition around 1995 and there was a VR booth. These or something similar were strapped to my head and I played 5 minutes of ROTT. All I remember is the FOV being very zoomed-in, and slight gestures caused wild movements, making it very hard to play.

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Meh. 3D/VR glasses, goggles, visors or what have you were at first a solution in search of a problem, and now are straight up Zeerust, along with terms such as "multimedia" and "virtual reality".

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