Quicktime VR found its niche later on. There were camera attachments for 360 lens "simulations" where you could shoot a scene and have it in QTVR. There were postcards (physical with CDs) with those.
I remember this though https://vimeo.com/97806117 which was more of a VR. We even had stereo glasses on workstations. There was also IO Glasses, later on, for PCs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNUIwi5F6g This was more like VR, not like QTVR. It gave you a dizzy spell and/or a headache after 15 minutes or so. It was worth it when playing Dark Forces with it though.
edit: I just remembered. IO Glasses cost somewhere about 1600 Deutsche Mark (around 800 Euros) and thing sucked, but not by much. I might still have them somewhere!
I spent a lot of time in late 99-2001 playing around with some of the prototypes IPIX was working on at the time. They had some of the best 360 stitched photography i'd ever seen, they'd built a quasi in-expensive adaptor for the Nikon cameras (The model that twisted in the middle), and were prototyping some really awesome 360 video tech. I think the best video I saw was a prototype helmet they'd put on users, allowing them to see stitched 360 footage from the perspective of a motorcycle riding through the Appalachians.
It makes me wonder how things would have turned out if a few of those companies had worked together rather than individually trying to solve the same problems.
I presume people from those companies, for the most part, went on to build (together) similar stuff in bigger companies like Google once their initial companies folded.
I remember this though https://vimeo.com/97806117 which was more of a VR. We even had stereo glasses on workstations. There was also IO Glasses, later on, for PCs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNUIwi5F6g This was more like VR, not like QTVR. It gave you a dizzy spell and/or a headache after 15 minutes or so. It was worth it when playing Dark Forces with it though.
edit: I just remembered. IO Glasses cost somewhere about 1600 Deutsche Mark (around 800 Euros) and thing sucked, but not by much. I might still have them somewhere!