VPL Research deserves more credit than it gets.
Founded in 1984 by Jaron Lanier and Thomas Zimmerman, with early funding partly from AI pioneer Marvin Minsky, VPL (short for "Virtual Programming Languages") was the first company to ever commercially sell virtual reality hardware.
Their lineup was wild for the era: the DataGlove ($9,000), the EyePhone HMD ($9,400, or $49,000 for the HRX model), the DataSuit, and a system called "Reality Built for Two" (RB2), one of the earliest networked VR setups that let two people share a virtual space. In 1987, Lanier coined (or popularized) the term "virtual reality" itself. Without VPL, the field might not even share a name.
The cultural ripple was huge. VPL licensed its DataGlove tech to Mattel, who turned it into the $90 Nintendo Power Glove, a holiday hit in 1989 that sold 1.3 million units worldwide, putting motion controls into millions of living rooms. The DataSuit and EyePhone were also featured prominently in The Lawnmower Man (1992), the film that introduced VR to mainstream audiences.
Then it all collapsed. VR was too expensive, too underpowered, and too far ahead of its market. VPL filed for bankruptcy in 1990. During Chapter 11, the company pledged more than 20 patents as collateral, which were sold at a discount to French defense contractor Thomson-CSF in 1992. Sun Microsystems eventually acquired the entire patent portfolio in 1998, where the IP became part of the foundation for Java 3D and went on to influence later standards like OpenVR and WebVR.
So VPL itself died, but its DNA is in basically every modern VR system you've ever used.