Gallery: See Thomas Edison's Steampunk Version of Oculus Rift
Photo: Public domain via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kinetophonebis1.jpg">Wikipedia</a>0132
The first viewers of the Kinetoscope paid 25 cents to see five films. An extra quarter would buy another five.
Photo: Public domain via Library of Congress02scopeop
The Kinetoscope ran 35mm film--invented specifically for the device--through a series of sprocketed gears, to make use of the interior space. The view through the peephole was backlit by a flickering lightbulb timed with the film to produce the illusion of movement.
Photo: Public domain via Library of Congress03scopecl
The Kinetoscope was little more than a cabinet with a peephole, but it marked a turning point in visual media and entertainment. Edison intended to do for images what the phonograph had done for sound.
Photo: Public Domain via National Park Service/Edison Historic Site0421
Bacigalupi’s Kinetoscope and phonograph parlor on Market Street in San Francisco. Parlors like these were where motion pictures met their first commercial audiences.
Photo: Public domain via Library of Congress05sneeze
Fred Ott's Sneeze, the earliest existing copyrighted motion picture. Early motion picture copyright required that they be submitted frame by frame to the US Copyright Office.
Photo: Public domain06Mariah
The Black Maria, Edison's film studio where much of the Kinetoscope motion pictures were produced. The building was set on a rotating gimble, to take advantage of changing light conditions.
