What Was the First Virtual Reality Device? The Surprising Truth

Close your eyes and imagine stepping into another world, a digital realm limited only by the imagination. This is the promise of virtual reality, a technology that feels both futuristic and, suddenly, immediately present. But this vision didn't spring forth from the modern era fully formed. Its origins are far older, more mechanical, and more astonishing than most realize. The question of its genesis—what was the first virtual reality device—is not a simple one; it's a fascinating detective story spanning decades, involving flight, film, and a foundational concept that would change everything.

The Seminal Idea: A Concept Before Its Time

Long before engineers could build headsets and computers could render 3D worlds, the seed of VR was planted in the realm of fiction. The very concept of an artificial reality, experienced through a device, was first popularized by a visionary science fiction writer.

In 1935, Stanley G. Weinbaum published a short story titled Pygmalion's Spectacles. In it, the protagonist wears a pair of goggles that transport him into a fictional world, engaging all his senses through holographic recordings, smell, and taste. Weinbaum’s prescient description is arguably the first literary conception of a VR headset. He didn't just imagine sight and sound; he envisioned a holistic, multisensory experience that modern VR is still striving to achieve. This story, and others like it in the burgeoning genre of science fiction, provided the conceptual framework. It established the idea of virtual reality in the public consciousness, creating a target for inventors and engineers to aim for. The first device, therefore, began not with circuits and lenses, but with words on a page.

The Practical Ancestors: Flight Simulators and the Link Trainer

If science fiction provided the dream, then necessity provided the first practical steps. The earliest functional ancestors of VR were not designed for entertainment but for training and survival, born from the urgent demands of aviation.

In 1929, Edwin Link invented the "Link Trainer," a mechanical flight simulator that used pumps, bellows, and valves to mimic the movement of an aircraft. Pilots would sit in a mock cockpit that pitched, rolled, and yawed based on their control inputs. While it lacked a visual component, it was the first successful attempt to simulate the physical feel of operating a vehicle in a synthetic environment. It was a rudimentary form of haptic feedback and motion simulation, key pillars of modern immersive technology. During World War II, over half a million airmen were trained on these devices, saving countless lives. The Link Trainer demonstrates that the foundational principle of VR—creating a believable simulated experience for the user—has a lineage that predates digital computing by decades. It was a vital, albeit non-visual, proto-VR device.

The Sensorama: The First Multisensory Attempt

While the Link Trainer simulated feel for a specific purpose, the first device to actively attempt to create a complete, immersive audio-visual experience for a general audience was the Sensorama. Patented in 1962 by cinematographer Morton Heilig, the Sensorama was a mechanical arcade-style cabinet, not a head-mounted display. The user would sit in a chair, look into a binocular-style viewfinder, and experience a short film—such as a motorcycle ride through Brooklyn—in stereoscopic 3D.

Heilig, who called himself an "experience theater" pioneer, understood that immersion was about more than just vision. The Sensorama was a marvel of electromechanical engineering that incorporated:

• Stereoscopic 3D Color Film: Providing a wide-field-of-view visual experience.
• Stereo Sound: Played through speakers in the chair.
• Vibrating Seat: To simulate motion and engine rumble.
• Wind Effects: A small fan blew air on the rider's face to simulate speed.
• Olfactory Stimuli: The device released targeted smells during the film (e.g., the smell of exhaust or food from a pizzeria).

Heilig’s philosophy was that the audience should not be a passive observer but an active participant "inside" the screen. The Sensorama was undoubtedly the first system designed to digitally overwhelm the senses and create the illusion of reality. However, it was a fixed, pre-recorded experience. It was immersive cinema, but it was not interactive or computer-generated, two elements many argue are crucial to the definition of true VR. Despite its brilliance, it failed to find commercial backing and faded into obscurity, a magnificent dead end in the history of immersive tech.

The Ultimate Display: The Conceptual Blueprint

While Heilig was building his mechanical wonder, a computer scientist was drafting the conceptual blueprint that would define virtual reality for the next half-century. In 1965, Ivan Sutherland, a pioneering figure in computer graphics, published a seminal essay titled The Ultimate Display.

In this paper, Sutherland envisioned a future where a computer could control the existence of matter. He described a room in which a computer could generate everything that could be seen, heard, and felt. His famous dictum was that "The Ultimate Display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. 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 fatal."

This was a radical leap. Sutherland was not talking about simulating reality for viewing; he was talking about a computer-generated reality that was indistinguishable from the physical world and was fully interactive. This concept of a responsive, digital world that replaces your own became the holy grail for VR researchers. It provided the philosophical and technical goals that are still being pursued today. The Ultimate Display was not a device itself, but it was the most important idea in the history of VR, setting the agenda for everything that followed.

The Sword of Damocles: The First Head-Mounted Display System

Inspired by his own ideas, Ivan Sutherland, with the help of his student Bob Sproull, went on to create what is widely considered to be the first true virtual reality and augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD) system: The Sword of Damocles, completed in 1968.

This device was a monumental achievement, but it was a far cry from the sleek headsets of today. It was so heavy that it had to be suspended from a mechanical arm attached to the ceiling (hence its dramatic name). The user’s head movements were tracked, and the system generated simple, wireframe 3D graphics—like a floating cube—that were superimposed onto the real world. This made it the first functional Augmented Reality system as well.

The graphics were primitive, but the principles were revolutionary. The Sword of Damocles was the first HMD to use:

• Head Tracking: The graphics changed in real-time based on where the user looked.
• Computer-Generated Graphics: It wasn't pre-recorded film; it was a digital, interactive world.
• Stereoscopic Displays: It created a convincing sense of three-dimensionality.

It fulfilled the core criteria of interactive, computer-generated immersion that the Sensorama lacked. For this reason, Ivan Sutherland is often called the "father of computer graphics," and his Sword of Damocles is unequivocally the direct ancestor of every modern AR and VR headset. It was the first device to successfully combine a head-mounted form factor with real-time computer graphics and tracking to create the illusion of a digital world coexisting with our own.

So, What Truly Was The First?

The answer to "what was the first virtual reality device" depends entirely on how one defines "virtual reality."

• If the definition is a multisensory experience: Then Morton Heilig’s Sensorama (1962) holds the title. It was the first to attempt to engage multiple senses to create immersion.
• If the definition is a head-mounted form factor: Then The Sword of Damocles (1968) is the clear winner, establishing the form we recognize today.
• If the definition is interactive, computer-generated worlds: The Sword of Damocles again takes the prize, as it was the first to use real-time graphics.
• If we consider practical simulation: Then the Link Trainer (1929) deserves recognition as a vital, non-visual precursor.
• If we value the conceptual origin: Then the crown goes to Stanley G. Weinbaum’s fictional spectacles (1935).

History is rarely a single point of origin but rather a converging path of ideas and inventions. The Sensorama provided the philosophy of multisensory immersion. Sutherland’s Ultimate Display provided the conceptual goal, and his Sword of Damocles provided the first practical, working prototype of a modern HMD. Each built upon the lessons and failures of the last.

The Legacy of the First Devices

The journey from the clunky, terrifying Sword of Damocles to today's sophisticated systems was long and fraught with periods of intense hype followed by "AI winters" of disillusionment. The 1980s and 90s saw a resurgence of interest, with companies developing HMDs for gaming and military applications, but the technology was still too expensive, too low-fidelity, and too cumbersome for mass adoption. It wasn't until the 2010s, with the advent of powerful smartphone components (high-resolution displays, accurate motion sensors, and fast processors) that the dream became commercially viable, leading to the current renaissance in VR technology.

Every modern VR headset carries the DNA of these pioneering devices. The haptic feedback controllers echo the physical feedback of the Link Trainer. The quest for 360-degree audio and broader fields of view continues Heilig's mission for multisensory immersion. The real-time, photorealistic graphics generated by powerful computers are steps toward Sutherland's Ultimate Display. We are still using the same fundamental blueprint, just with infinitely more powerful technology.

The story of the first VR device is a testament to human imagination. It shows that a transformative technology is never the work of a single genius or a single moment, but a chain of visionaries who dared to imagine a different reality and then, piece by piece, built the tools to make it exist. From the pages of a pulp magazine to a suspended nightmare of wires and steel, the dream persisted, waiting for the world to finally catch up. And now, as we don our own headsets and step into new worlds, we are not just experiencing the cutting edge of technology; we are living the culmination of a century-old dream, finally made real.