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  • - I'm pretty sure there's something wrong.

  • [laughs]

  • We're off to a great start.

  • [piano music]

  • Greetings and welcome to LGR Oddware,

  • where we're taking a look at hardware and software

  • that is odd, forgotten and obsolete.

  • And this time, we've got this right here.

  • This is the Essential Reality P5 Glove controller,

  • I guess you could call it,

  • and it's sort of a glorified mouse

  • input device type thing for PCs,

  • to let you control games and your computer desktop,

  • and whatever else, through the power of your fingers.

  • It's quite the experience,

  • and this was actually given to me,

  • and the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2019.

  • Forgive me, I didn't write down your name,

  • but he gave me this T-shirt as well.

  • I guess he's with Free Geek, Twin Cities.

  • They do some cool stuff with e-cycling and all that,

  • thank you for both of these things,

  • but yeah, he apparently got this dropped off there,

  • and thought of me, and it's like brand new and everything,

  • so here it is, thank you very much for giving this to me,

  • and yeah, let's take a look at the P5!

  • Alrighty, time to get hands-on with this thing.

  • This is the Essential Reality P5,

  • with P5 standing for power of five,

  • as in your five fingers.

  • It sold for $150 when it launched

  • in the latter half of 2002.

  • A price that immediately drew criticism.

  • Sure, it came packed with full versions

  • of the games, Operation Tiger Hunt and Hitman 2,

  • but 150 bucks?

  • That was the same price as a brand new

  • Nintendo GameCube console back then,

  • so it's little wonder that Essential Reality

  • quickly dropped the price to $99 for the P5

  • at the beginning of 2003.

  • "The future is at hand."

  • Ah geez, they couldn't resist a hand pun, huh?

  • On the other hand, you've got to hand it to them,

  • puns are hands down on the handiest ways

  • to get a grip on product marketing

  • without using under-handed business tactics.

  • So I give it two thumbs up.

  • Anyways, Essential Reality billed the P5

  • as the Ultimate 3D Virtual Controller,

  • providing six degrees of motion control,

  • the ability to detect gripping and finger movements.

  • It drew immediate comparisons to the Power Glove

  • for the NES among gamers,

  • but the mainstream media really latched onto the idea

  • of it being a kind of futuristic mouse replacement.

  • There were all kinds of ridiculous headlines like,

  • Are Mice Now Obsolete?

  • and The Mouse Faces Extinction.

  • Not to mention calling the P5

  • a device for hardcore video game players

  • that find joysticks and mice too confining.

  • [laughs] Because who hates playing games

  • with traditional controls more than hardcore gamers, right?

  • Now check out this mock-up of the modern day gamer

  • in 2002, complete with a CyMouse head tracker,

  • Olympus Eye-Trek display, and of course, the P5.

  • Fantastic!

  • The company also touted this as a potential

  • input device for 3D animation, CAD modeling,

  • and sports simulations, stating that

  • "there's a lot of people sick of the mouse.

  • It's a limited two-dimensional device.

  • We want to go above and beyond that."

  • Indeed, which is why companies like Spacetech IMC

  • sold their Spaceball devices

  • nearly a decade and a half before the P5.

  • Quite successfully too.

  • So yeah, they were correct that certain people

  • demanded mouse alternatives.

  • It's just that they were late to the party,

  • and professionals had long since decided

  • on using devices like the Spaceball,

  • which left the P5 for quote, hardcore gamers,

  • and their supposed hatred of mice and joysticks.

  • Unfortunate then, that game support was so abysmal.

  • Only five games were officially patched for it.

  • The afore-mentioned Hitman 2 and Tiger Hunt,

  • as well as Serious Sam II, Black and White,

  • Air Lock and a demo for Beach Head 2002.

  • Yeah!

  • Essential Reality promised more support in the future,

  • along with Playstation 2 and X-Box versions,

  • left-handed and smaller-sized models,

  • and even a fully wireless edition.

  • Of course, this never happened.

  • Beyond a software update in 2003,

  • Essential Reality soon stopped development on the P5,

  • and massively discounted gloves,

  • started littering store clearance sections.

  • As fate would have it, though this was when the P5

  • finally started forming a proper community

  • with $20 gloves ending up in the hands of hobbyists,

  • who saw the potential with its new low price point.

  • Custom drivers and a new API by Carl Kenner

  • were a popular upgrade,

  • soon being preferred by users

  • over the original Essential Reality software.

  • But yeah, even that's over 15 years old now.

  • By and large, what little community the P5 once boasted

  • has long since moved on,

  • with recent efforts to add P5 support

  • to OpenHMD having fizzled out.

  • However, on LGR Oddware, we're just getting started.

  • So, let's see how it was to use one fresh out of the box.

  • This is the special premiere edition from 2002,

  • bundled with unique P5 enabled CD-ROMs for Hitman 2,

  • Tiger Hunt and Beach Head 2002.

  • You also get some replacement plastic

  • finger-squeezing thingies,

  • and this towering motion tracker

  • they call the P5 Receptor.

  • Kind of looks like a slimline computer speaker

  • with a USB cable, but in reality,

  • it's an infrared receiver

  • that senses movement made by the P5 Glove.

  • So yeah, unlike the Power Glove's ultrasonic microphones,

  • this uses infrared.

  • Kind of like the Nintendo Wii sensor bar.

  • Finally, there's the glove itself,

  • held in place with far too many twisty-ties here,

  • but I guess they really wanted to show it off,

  • so they did what they had to,

  • but yeah, here it is!

  • It's a combination of plastic and rubber materials

  • that slides onto your right hand,

  • with eight infrared LEDs around the edges,

  • and four buttons on the top left hand side.

  • You know, the P5 Glove is really less of a glove,

  • and more of a hand harness

  • that hugs onto your fingers.

  • Actually, you know those jeweled bracelets

  • that extend to cover your whole hand?

  • Kind of like that but for obsolete hardware nerds.

  • Or perhaps the most ineffective Thanos cosplay,

  • just instead of Infinity Stones, you have infinity LEDs.

  • Anyway, the non-glove has a cable,

  • permanently attached to the rear right of the hand,

  • which connects to the front of the IR Receiver Tower.

  • And in return, the tower connects to your PC

  • via USB one point one.

  • As for where you place the receiver,

  • well that's a bit of a thing

  • that we'll get to soon enough,

  • but yeah, that's about it for setup.

  • The rest is all software found on this fourth CD-ROM

  • tucked away in the bottom of the box.

  • The documentation is pretty sparse.

  • All you get is this cheap foldout paperwork

  • that basically just says to plug it in

  • and install the software.

  • So enough of me talking, let's move on

  • over to more of me talking.

  • Ahh!

  • Okay, I've got the Windows XP build going right here,

  • and we have the thing plugged in.

  • All that kind of good stuff.

  • We've got the hand ready to go,

  • but right now, it is not turned on.

  • So, I was actually putting it on the wrong way

  • when I first got it.

  • Had to do some adjustments,

  • and actually those other plastic things

  • that it comes with are not only replacements,

  • but they're a little bit larger, which is good.

  • Some of my fingers were getting cut off

  • with the circulation.

  • Actually, wait, I still did it wrong.

  • It's supposed to go like this.

  • Then the thumb goes in there,

  • and this goes around and catches onto this bottom part.

  • Like that? Yeah!

  • And now this is the power button.

  • So if we turn that on,

  • you'll see this little red light starts flashing.

  • If it's not in view, and now it's solid.

  • Now it is in view.

  • As you can see here,

  • it is actually moving the mouse cursor.

  • [chuckles] Somewhat.

  • Actually, I think I'm going to have to

  • move back a little bit. Yeah.

  • This is supposedly the optimal distance.

  • There is however, a calibration

  • thing that it came with, which is this right here.

  • And yes, I'm using an actual mouse instead of this thing.

  • That should give you a clue right there,

  • but anyway, so if I hit the A button.

  • Dang it!

  • This is all part of the experience.

  • Crap!

  • Okay, if I hit the A button, it clears that out,

  • and it's supposed to be

  • calibrating my finger movements.

  • Come on now!

  • There it is!

  • Okay, now, supposed to squeeze,

  • and then press A again, and now, it is calibrated.

  • [laughs]

  • So index finger is left-click.

  • As you can see here, I can click like

  • Click click click clicking around.

  • That's fine!

  • And you can switch these around in this menu here,

  • so index left-click, middle finger...

  • Or middle click is the thumb.

  • And right-click is the middle finger,

  • so dunk, over there!

  • Click and then, whatever.

  • Anyway, so this is desktop mouse mode.

  • However, as you can see,

  • it is not the most reliable thing.

  • There's definitely a lot of acceleration

  • in this crazy weird little dead zone,

  • and as you can see there,

  • now it's kind of losing the tracking.

  • It's constantly losing the tracking.

  • In fact, let me show a brief little video,

  • or part of a video that it played

  • whenever I first started this thing up

  • and installed the software.

  • [electronic music]

  • - [Video Narrator] Congratulations on purchasing your P5!

  • The red LED on the receptor should be facing you,

  • and it will blink when the glove is out of range.

  • Place the receptor to the right

  • of your monitor or computer.

  • Facing towards you about one and a half

  • to two feet away from where you'll be resting your hand.

  • You can go up to three feet and still get excellent results.

  • Just move your hand around in the direction you want to go.

  • The P5 allows you to go left, right, up, down and z,

  • as well as yaw, pitch and roll.

  • Point and click, and you're good to go.

  • [electronic music]

  • - So yeah, that shows you how it's supposed to work,

  • and honestly, it seems to be doing what it's supposed to,

  • it's just not good.

  • If I were to open up Solitaire here,

  • okay you kind of have to move your hand back

  • and come on, click!

  • Click! There we go!

  • Clicking is not the most accurate,

  • not the most reliable thing, but it can be done.

  • And it's totally possible to play

  • a game of Solitaire on here.

  • I actually played one to completion earlier,

  • and caused some harm to myself.

  • Take a look at my index finger there.

  • I've got a bandaid on there,

  • because look at this footage from earlier.

  • It actually started wearing off the skin from my knuckle.

  • Because I was clicking.

  • Just clicking, maybe 15 minutes worth,

  • and it just rubbed the skin right off of there,

  • so that's a thing.

  • It is just rubber here after all,

  • I mean it's not like the most abrasive rubber.

  • It's not super soft, but they should've put

  • some of the coating on the bottom there too.

  • Maybe prevent that, but anyway,

  • that's enough Solitaire.

  • Let's, oh no, here we go!

  • Ahh, hitting little buttons and any kind of thing

  • like that is not what this is made for.

  • Come on, go down there!

  • Now see, this is a challenge.

  • Sometimes getting all the way over to the start menu

  • is a real big thing.

  • I just want to go down there.

  • That time it worked.

  • If I move all the way back here,

  • it kind of works.

  • Actually I'm about three feet away here.

  • Ahh!

  • - [Video Narrator] You can go up to three feet

  • and still get excellent results.

  • And still get excellent results.

  • Excellent results.

  • [audio slows down] Excellent results.

  • - Anyway, come on!

  • Figure out where I am, there we are!

  • We can open up something like Air Lock.

  • This is a little demo of a thing.

  • What? P5 authenticate failed?

  • Oh, that's good!

  • Let's try that again.

  • Hey, it worked that time.

  • All right, so you've got this cage,

  • and you're supposed to move it in and out here,

  • and grab these floating objects, and that's it.

  • Remember glove ball?

  • Yeah, this is not a very well-made demo,

  • but it does work just about better than

  • anything else that I've tried.

  • Because that's actually made for

  • this particular P5 in mind,

  • it's not just some, this works great.

  • Come on! There we go!

  • Wow, that was amazing.

  • And that's all this is, you just try to

  • [laughs] it's literally a game that

  • shows off how finicky this thing is.

  • It's like how quickly can you fight the controls,

  • and actually make it do what you want?

  • And it does that every time you try

  • to knock out the game, or close out the game.

  • Just donk, and you're knocked back to the desktop.

  • Anyway, another one it comes with that doesn't work is

  • Beach Head 2002.

  • Now the game starts up, usually,

  • so you can just hit Play.

  • The thing is, it takes you to this thing.

  • It's like, thank you for installing.

  • This game has been enabled with ActiveMark,

  • allowing you to run the demo

  • and purchase the full version

  • without having to download again.

  • In other words, it's a cut down version of the game,

  • which we knew, it's listed as a demo,

  • but just click Start Playing,

  • and it always just does this.

  • It goes blank screen.

  • And yeah, it's just not working.

  • And then it'll take you back to the main menu,

  • which is nice, it's oh good!

  • Now I can check out the controls, like P5 controls.

  • It is a custom version of the game.

  • If you can click on anything, dang it!

  • Come on now!

  • The clicking seems to be not very sensitive in this game.

  • Here we go!

  • So you can look at the mapping.

  • And look, controls, this is going to be great.

  • You can shoot with your thumb,

  • and toggle weapons with your index finger.

  • Fire missiles with your middle finger.

  • Dude that's so cool!

  • Hey, let's just play.

  • Let's play.

  • And it takes you back to this screen again.

  • Okay fine, let's start play.

  • And you get this, again.

  • And it's an endless loop of it trying to

  • activate the game, or let you play the demo,

  • but it doesn't let you do that.

  • Every time you hit New Game, or Continue Game,

  • or whatever, it takes you back to this.

  • Anyway, it doesn't work, the point being,

  • that sucks!

  • And it also crashes.

  • [laughs] Everything that it comes with, crashes.

  • Pretty constantly, oh my word!

  • All right, another one that it comes with

  • that doesn't really work [laughs] seeing a pattern?

  • Tiger Hunt.

  • Let's just open that with the normal mouse.

  • You can see, the menu looks pretty much the same.

  • There's a P5 section in the options menu.

  • So these are your things.

  • Good luck trying to change any of this though,

  • with the actual glove, it's so hard to even,

  • like I'm barely moving my hand.

  • Ugh!

  • Why didn't they redo the menus or anything

  • to make this more optimized for the glove?

  • I don't know.

  • Let's just play.

  • We'll not do the training missions.

  • Come on now!

  • Oh my word!

  • Here we go!

  • Hit the Play button, again this tiny little button

  • at the bottom of the screen.

  • And I'm pretty sure there's something wrong.

  • You're supposed to be able to control

  • certain directions and what not by rolling,

  • and moving around, here we can go into first person.

  • It does work, to a degree, here I am shooting,

  • but as you can see, there's graphical glitches.

  • There's something wrong.

  • [laughs]

  • We're off to a great start.

  • [cracks up]

  • So there's something going on with the graphics.

  • But other than that, you can kind of see

  • how it's supposed to work, sort of.

  • You know, moving up and down to aim.

  • Rotating your arm is supposed to move you around.

  • There's a way you can WASD it too,

  • and sort of move around, but again,

  • you can't be too close, well there's that.

  • You can't be too close to the sensor.

  • It doesn't work, but yet, you're supposed to also

  • use the keyboard for a lot of functions.

  • That's not great.

  • It constantly thinks I'm rolling.

  • You can see the steering wheel thing.

  • It's like it's from an old Toyota or something.

  • I guess that's what you steer tanks with in this game.

  • A Toyota steering wheel.

  • All right, let's get out of here.

  • Go!

  • That one at least doesn't crash,

  • and it goes straight back to the desktop.

  • That's good!

  • Now here's one of the more interesting ones.

  • Or ones that I was most interested in trying, Hitman 2.

  • Cause I'm like how can they possibly

  • take this stealth game and make it work with the P5?

  • The short answer is, they didn't.

  • Right, so Hitman 2.

  • We do at least have some finer control over the mouse here.

  • This is the most promising thing yet.

  • You see how it's smoothed?

  • And I can actually sort of move it where I want it to.

  • Oh no, go back!

  • This overly dramatic music for this is pretty appropriate.

  • We'll see if it actually loads this time,

  • last time I tried to play this, it crashed.

  • Oh no, it did load it, okay good!

  • So effectively, you're just controlling

  • the view of Agent 47 here.

  • I'm pretty sure that's it.

  • You can interact with some things,

  • again you have to do this weird thing

  • where your hand is back here.

  • You're controlling the movement like this

  • with the keyboard.

  • Okay, I forget what button it is.

  • It's one of these fingers.

  • Come on, open the door!

  • Open the door, Agent!

  • Tap! Open the door!

  • There it is!

  • I opened it, I don't know how, but I did.

  • There's a person.

  • How am I doing?

  • I can't control anything, sir.

  • Everything else, you got to be doing with the keyboard,

  • and well, it's uncomfortable to say the least.

  • Anyway, so we've exhausted everything that it comes with.

  • That's it!

  • Actually, let's try Paint.

  • So there's something that it is not very good with.

  • That is clicking and dragging.

  • Like when you hold it down, it doesn't want to do--

  • There you go!

  • It doesn't want to do movement anymore.

  • So you have to move it a lot.

  • [laughs] And do like, it's the same problem

  • I was having playing Solitaire.

  • There we go!

  • And now for the R, come on now!

  • That worked better that time.

  • Yeah, perfect!

  • There's a learning curve to this, obviously,

  • but I've been using this thing for hours,

  • and it's just not getting much better.

  • Man, you should've see it when I first started this.

  • I wish I was recording that, but it was so much worse.

  • So here's a test that should be stupid.

  • Duke Nukem 3D!

  • We go around here and control things with the mouse.

  • Honestly, considering how limited this game is

  • with the mouse anyway, this is not too bad.

  • [gun firing]

  • Now one thing I was kind of disappointed in,

  • [laughs] was the fact that I saw a lot

  • of the promo shots, saying you could do this,

  • Like finger guns.

  • Which you can, but that also means

  • you can no longer look around.

  • [laughs] Because you're not only

  • pressing other buttons down here to make that shape,

  • but if you're sideways, it's not going to be

  • happy to move around.

  • But I think it's mostly cause you're pressing other buttons.

  • I think middle finger opens doors.

  • Sure does.

  • [gun firing]

  • Nice!

  • [laughs] Look this way, other way, other way!

  • Oh, he's teleporting away.

  • Come on now, come back!

  • Uh no! No!

  • [gun firing]

  • I got this!

  • Oh no I don't!

  • Look the other way, Duke!

  • Look down!

  • [gun firing]

  • Phew! All right!

  • We got this!

  • I really did!

  • Come on now!

  • [gun firing]

  • Ugh! Okay!

  • Come on now!

  • Look down!

  • Ugh!

  • Well, that's the P5 Glove.

  • Aw man, feels so gross right now too.

  • I've got glove hand, look at that!

  • I got the red marks and everything.

  • Digs in there!

  • It is definitely made for hands a little smaller than mine.

  • That is what it is, the P5 Glove everyone.

  • What a joke!

  • Well, that's about it for the

  • P5 Glove by Essential Reality.

  • It is not the most enjoyable thing to use in practice.

  • The idea is much more interesting

  • than the actual experience,

  • but nonetheless, I'm amused by this thing.

  • I'm glad it exists and I was glad

  • to have the opportunity to take a look at it.

  • However, it is really just disappointing in the end.

  • Even knowing its limitations going in,

  • I still somehow ended up disappointed.

  • Yeah, that's just kind of how it goes with all of these

  • virtual gloves that I've used.

  • I've messed with the Valve Index more recently,

  • it's interesting to have that kind

  • of a finger tracking thing, but even that's

  • still not quite where I want it yet.

  • It's like when is this ever going to get to

  • a place where this actually makes sense

  • as an input device?

  • Gloves, maybe never!

  • It's neat to see all the steps along the way for sure.

  • Although I did actually try,

  • for the sake of completeness,

  • those custom drivers and API things

  • that were made for it back in the day.

  • And they do improve it somewhat with certain things.

  • It's not really so much a full driver replacement,

  • such as it is a library, or set of libraries,

  • that just goes on top of what

  • Essential Reality provided,

  • and improves the input on certain things,

  • like Hitman and Tiger Hunt were a little bit smoother

  • to look around, and what not in relative mode.

  • There's absolute mode possibilities as well.

  • Certain other things though,

  • like that ball-grabbing game or whatever it is,

  • that was actually worse, I thought,

  • with those new drivers,

  • and it's also not going to affect or improve

  • desktop mouse movement mode at all,

  • cause apparently, that's just built

  • into the hardware itself.

  • And it relies on Window's input drivers

  • for mouse USB stuff, and that's about it.

  • So it really doesn't do much in terms of

  • improving the experience for when I hoped

  • that maybe it could do,

  • but that's just kind of how it goes.

  • It's one of those devices that was really intriguing,

  • because of course, you see these kinds

  • of gloves and what not.

  • VR gloves were always this thing that seemed

  • like it could be possible.

  • You saw it in movies like "Jurassic Park",

  • that one scene where the scientist is looking around

  • and messing with DNA or something,

  • and also "Minority Report",

  • yeah, there were gloves there.

  • You know, I guess Spielberg has a thing for VR gloves.

  • Anyway, this is not that, is what I'm trying to say.

  • And that's unfortunate, but you know,

  • I guess I didn't really have any expectations

  • of that being the case either.

  • Still, it's an interesting device to mess with,

  • and the hobbyist scene is kind of one of those things

  • where it made a little more sense,

  • once it got cheaper.

  • It kind of reminds me of the X-box Connect, in that sense.

  • You know, even the Wiimote and the Playstation Move,

  • when hardware hackers got a hold of it,

  • and started writing their own software.

  • There were some interesting things that were done,

  • that were actually more interesting

  • than the official software for it.

  • There's a couple videos on YouTube of this.

  • Some people taking them apart and improving them,

  • or one guy even uses it like a midi,

  • I think it's an oscillator or something,

  • he's doing it like a virtual theremin.

  • There's some interesting ideas.

  • But it's not the thing you want to actually use,

  • in your day to day.

  • It is what it is, and that is the P5 Glove.

  • And that is LGR Oddware.

  • [jazz music]

  • And if you liked this episode of Oddware,

  • then perhaps you'd like to check out

  • some of the others that I've done in the past,

  • as well as who knows what else.

  • I do a whole lot of things here in LGR,

  • with new videos uploading every week.

  • And as always, thank you very much for watching.

- I'm pretty sure there's something wrong.

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LGR Oddware - Essential Reality P5グローブ (LGR Oddware - Essential Reality P5 Glove)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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