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Virtual reality has different meanings for different people. A common definition of VR is an interactive, computer- generated simulated environment with which users can interact using data gloves and head-mounted computer-graphic displays. We contacted Jerry Prothero, a reasearch associate at the University of Washington, who works in the Human Interface Technology Laboratory. We asked him for his personal definition of virtual reality. He wrote back saying: "It can be defined in technological terms as a set of input devices which stimulate a high percentage of our senosory input channels, for instance, by providing a wide visual field-of-view and stereo sound. It can be defined in psychological terms a a pattern of sensory stimuli which gives one an impression of being in a computer-generated space. Both definitions are used, unfortunately, usually without distinguising between them. In principle, one can have either without the other. Incidentally, academics usally use VE (virtual environments) rather than VR. Virtual reality is a bit of an oxymoron." Jerry Isdale of Isdale Engineering wrote a paper and put it on the internet entitled "What is Virtual Reality?" In the paper, he says, "There are some people to whom VR is a specific collection of technologies, that is a head mounted display, glove input device and audio, used to become immersed into a computer generated world and to interact with the environment. Some other people stretch the term to include conventional books, movies, or pure fantasy and imagination."