Glasstron

Glasstron was a series of portable head-mounted displays released by Sony, initially introduced in 1996 with the model PLM-50.^[1][2] The products featured two LCD screens and two earphones for video and audio respectively. The products are no longer manufactured nor supported by Sony.^{[citation needed]}

Glasstron

A Glasstron PLM-100
Manufacturer	Sony
Product family	Glasstron
Type	Head-mounted display

The Glasstron was not the first head-mounted display by Sony, with the Visortron being a previous exhibited unit.^[3][4] The Sony HMZ-T1 can be considered a successor to Glasstron.^[2] The head-mounted display developed for Sony during the mid-1990s^[which?] by Virtual i-o is completely unrelated to the Glasstron.^[1]

One application of this technology was in the game MechWarrior 2, which permitted users to adopt a visual perspective from inside the cockpit of the craft, using their own eyes as visual and seeing the battlefield through their craft's own cockpit.^[5]

Models

Five models were released.^{[citation needed]} Supported video inputs included PC (15 pin, VGA interface), Composite and S-Video. A brief list of the models follows:

Model number	Year of release	Notes
PLM-50	1996[6]	Released June 1996 in Japan.[6]
PLM-A35	1997[7]	The most basic model with opaque lenses and has CVBS/S-Video Input.[8] Released June 1997 in USA.[7]
PLM-A55	1997[7]	This model had a mechanical shutter to allow the display to become see through, without SVGA.[citation needed] Released June 1997 in USA.[7]
PLM-100	1998[citation needed]	This model had a mechanical shutter to allow the display to become see through, with SVGA, somewhat unstable.[citation needed] The PLM-100 has two color LCD displays and requires an NTSC signal.[9]
PLM-S700 / PLM-S700E	1998[10]	The S700 allowed for see through mode using LCD shutters and had support for SVGA input.[citation needed] Its LCD had over 1.55 million pixels on a component the size of a ten-cent coin at SVGA (800×600) display resolution.[citation needed] The S700 has NTSC input, whilst the S700E has PAL input. The S700 was released on 10 November 1998 in Japan.[10]