This Is What the HoloLens Might Have Looked Like in 1998

​Microsoft's HoloLens—altered reality goggles that project int​eractive holograms into the physical space around the wearer—debuted last week after at least sev​en years in the making, an advancement of the Xbox's Kinect motion-detection software.

But the dream of living in a holographic world stretches back even further, as evidenced by a wonderfully HoloLens-ish invention the Massachuset​ts Institute of Technology patented back in the 90s:

Behold the "dynamic holographic video with haptic interaction." Okay, the device doesn't look all that HoloLens-y, but the description in the patent document sounds awfully similar, stating it "enables a user to rapidly interact with and modify an electronic holographic image using a force-feedback device and both general and special-purpose hardware."

Translation: you can see a holograph and interact with it instantly. Just like with the HoloLens.

As for the haptic interaction? That means you can feel the holograph as you manipulate it using the accompanying pen; "a user can see, feel, and interact with synthetic objects that exhibit many of the properties one expects of real ones," the patent reads. That would actually surpass the capabilities of the HoloLens (you can't actually feel the holographs in the modern version…yet).

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In this early invention, the holograph is limited to rather small viewing area and interaction limited to the pen that comes with it, but it's still a remarkable vision of technology that predates the HoloLens by a good 16 years—the patent was filed in 1998 by some graduate students and holograp​h pioneer Stephen Benton.

When Microsoft debuted the HoloLens to the media last week, Alex Kipman, one of the inventors of the device, made note of the prior technological advancements that had to take place in order to make HoloLens a reality.

"Just as punch cards turned to keyboards and mice turned to touch, with each major advancement in input and output, technology becomes more personal," he said. "Each advancement decreases the distance between us and technology."

He might not have been thinking of the dynamic holographic video—Kipman would have only been 19 or 20 when it was patented—and the ideas behind the invention probably weren't direct precursors to the HoloLens, but it's clear that Microsoft's vision of a future where we all spend our days surrounded by holograms is a rather retro idea.