Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!mcnc!xanth!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Data Glove?
Message-ID: <5755@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 26 Oct 88 04:49:17 GMT
References: <114@ssp17.idca.tds.philips.nl>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 29

In article <114@ssp17.idca.tds.philips.nl> gordon@idca.tds.PHILIPS.nl
(Gordon Booman) writes:
>Remember the Data Glove?  It was a glove that reported hand position, finger
>curl, etc. to the Mac for **only** $8500.
>
>Does anyone have any info on the product or the company?  I haven't heard
>anything since last year.  Is it still available on the Mac?  Is it still
>$8500?  Is the company still alive?  Thanks,

The price is right, but that's about it.  I never heard of one with a
Mac interface, though of course it's possible.  For more information,
see the article on advanced computer interfaces in the September 1988
Scientific American.  That Dataglove only worked with a supercomputer
that was also driving a heads-up (goggle-type) 3-D display.  It takes a
lot of computing power to do that with any acceptable speed, and
without a 3-D heads-up display, it's hard to see what a Dataglove would
be good for.  Touch screens, not to mention mice, are just as good and
a lot cheaper for 2-D displays.  You could do it with a 3-D projection
onto a 2-D display (providing an image of the glove in the projection)
but you'd lose the kinesthetic benefits.  And the display would still
take more power than a 68K is going to give you.  Maybe with a
transputer card or five....

If you do get any information on a Mac Dataglove, please let me know.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"Those who restrain desire, so so because theirs is weak enough to be
 restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the
 unwilling." - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"