to specialists with deep pockets; or as a consumer product, where high volume would drive down its cost. Workers hadn’t enjoyed the Private Eye screen with its all-red graphics. But what if the display could be used in short bursts? Videogames were the obvious choice.

They made two prototypes to show potential suitors. The first looked almost exactly like Geordi La Forge’s visor from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Reflection collaborated on the build with Frog Design, known for its work with Apple. Steve Lipsey, then the vice president of sales for Reflection, describes the inherent problems of building a device that weighed several ounces and needed to hang in front of your eyes: “That’s hard to do in a way that didn’t look like you were about to have brain surgery, that was comfortable, [and] wouldn’t interfere with women’s hair.”

Another, slightly cruder version used a football helmet outfitted with two Private Eyes and a Polhemus magnetic tracking device to sense direction. A local game developer made a basic tank game, similar to Battlezone. The sense of immersion and total player control the helmet design provided made for an experience like nothing else on the market. After hours of number crunching and staring at screens during the regular work day, the team at Reflection would stay for hours more, playing the demo late into the night.

Becker thought they’d found their killer app. Lipsey traveled across the country pitching their idea to various companies, among them Atari and Mattel. “Security at Mattel was significantly higher than that of the Pentagon,” Lipsey says. He also flew to Japan regularly, taking meetings with higher-ups at Bandai and Sony. Jack Plimpton, CEO of JapanEntry, a group that helps American companies do business abroad, consulted on these trips and helped translate. In 1990, Lipsey and Plimpton traveled to Japan for a meeting with Sony executives. Lipsey remembers it well:

“I’m sitting in the middle of the table. Jack is next to me. Across from me is … maybe vice chairman of the board? Some crazy-high title. Ten minutes into the pitch, the guy’s looking at me, he’s four feet away across the table. All of a sudden there’s a loud thump. His head goes down on the table and he starts snoring! I don’t know what to do. Everyone else is listening. But this guy’s the decision maker. In America, this is the only guy that matters. And he’s snoring.”

Lipsey raised his voice a little to get over the noise. Soon the man snorted, looked around, and got up and left. Crestfallen but resilient, Lipsey kept his composure and somehow finished the pitch. Everyone stood up, bowed politely, had some tea, and left. Outside, he looked at Plimpton: “Well, that was a waste of a plane ticket.”

“Oh no, that was wonderful!” Plimpton answered. “Couldn’t have gone better.” He explained that when the head honcho fell asleep, he was sending a signal to all of his subordinates that things were going well. They didn’t need him anymore and should proceed.

“In fact, the relationship [with Sony] moved on quite a bit,” Lipsey tells me. But the deal was never closed. “It only took one highly placed naysayer, somebody without imagination to look at this thing and say, ‘This is crazy. Let’s not do it.’ And you’re dead. That’s what happened there.”

The guys at Reflection thought Sony, the company that invented the Walkman, would be perfect for their innovative device. Many others showed interest. None took the necessary leap—