Famicom 3D System (goggles, glasses)

[133MHz]

It works by placing LCD shutters over each of your eyes. The system sends a signal to the glasses to block your left or your right eye at will (when each LCD shutter is energized, it turns black).

When you play a 3D enabled game, by pushing the SELECT button you enable 3D mode. Instead of displaying every frame progressively, it displays alternated frames, one for the left eye, one for the right eye, and so on. When a frame for your left eye is displayed, the glasses block your right eye from seeing it, and vice versa.

This means that the frame rate is effectively halved (30 instead of 60 Hz) and that if you look at the picture without the glasses you'll see rapid, flickering double images. The adapter's got two jacks so that you can plug two 3D glasses and have a friend play with you or watch without getting sick .

If you've set up everything correctly and you still see in "drunk-o-vision", then your glasses are probably defective (frayed cord is the most probable cause).

[Nintega]

LCD shutters? What do they look like?

[133MHz]

They look like calculator/clock LCD panels, but when you apply current to them they turn completely black instead of just the digit's shapes. In a nutshell, they look like clear glass in normal conditions, but when powered they look like a black sheet (note the reverse can also be true - depends on the manufacturing process).

[Nintega]

This is making my head hurt. 

When I plug in the googles  the screen gets darker and the frame rate gets cut in half like you said. Does the effect work when you close one eye?

[133MHz]

This is making my head hurt. 

...and that's why the system never took off on a large scale. Today you can refresh a PC monitor at 120Hz (so that you have 60 Hz for each eye - no flicker, no headaches) but it's still a niche market.

Does the effect work when you close one eye?

Nope, we need two eyes for stereoscopic vision/depth perception (try calculating distance with one eye and you'll see what I mean). If you use one eye you should see a 2D picture.

[PatMan33]

Bleh! Seems as if I am also suffering from a malfunctioning pair of 3D glasses. What a pity.

[Protoman]

The future is 1987!

I got my Famicom 3D glasses recently and tried them with two games, Falsion and Cosmic Epsilon. They both worked! Surprisingly Cosmic Epsilon worked better for me, because it had a background where Falsion just has black and flying stars.