What was that on Dade Murphy's head in the movie hackers during the time they were hacking the super computer?

Question

During the time they were hacking the Gibson? did it actually help? or is it old abandon tech they were promoting like the VR machine "the Plague" was using.

Answer 1

It was a Head-Mount-Display (HMD). Hackers have been playing with them for years. They've gotten good enough that doctors use them in surgery, but to get them that good they cost a lot of money. Cheaper HMD's can be made from old camcorder viewers, but the quality hasnt been good enough to read text well yet.

The upside is the prices are going way down and the technology is going way up, within a few years we'll see a lot more of them, along with wearable computers.