The Total Environment Room

In 1963, GE engineer John L. Matrone came up with the idea of creating a "total environment" room. It would be capable of creating any environment (the deck of an ocean liner, a beach in Hawaii, a rainforest in Tasmania) inside your own home.

Components for the fun room have long been on GE drawing boards.
The space would be 20 feet by 10 feet, with approximately 10 feet of overhead to contain a special piston arrangement and an "atmospheric preparation tank" for creating the real atmosphere of the desire scene.
(You could easily make it snow, said Matrone, but the problem would be "shoveling" all that stuff out afterward.)
One of the room's walls would be arced in 180 degrees for 3-D and motion location scenes.

I don't believe a "total environment" room was ever built, but it sounds quite a bit like the Holodeck in Star Trek (minus the holograms).

The Shreveport Times - Nov 3, 1963

The Lincoln Star - Nov 3, 1963

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Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 11, 2017
Category: Buildings and Other Structures | Inventions | 1960s

Comments

This story reminded me of my college days. While earning my B.S. degree at the University of Wisconsin in the late 60's, I had a part-time job at the Biotron. The Biotron had (and still has) the capability of creating whatever atmosphere a researcher wanted in its individual lab rooms. This article neatly sums up its capabilities: https://www.vetmed.wisc.edu/biotron-research/

Posted by Fritz G on 03/11/17 at 07:43 AM

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