May 29, 2014 6:30 AM

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>
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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 Congress
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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 Congress
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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 Site
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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 Congress
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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 domain
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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.

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