Phenakistascope

The phenakistascope was one of the first forms of animation starting in 1931 designed by Joseph Plateu (who happens to have the same birthday as me). It used persistance of vision to create an optical illusion. As you can see from the video, it was a wheel and another wheel in front with slits in that you look through at a mirror and you see images appearing to move.
I find this form of animation compelling, i seem to find something new each time i watch them. I'm also fascinated that its so fluid and everything fits together perfectly. It's like they had animation sussed very early on and we just complicated things, creating lots of new ways to make the same thing. Granted this was needed otherwise we wouldn't have computer generated animation like we do today and it would't all be so easily accessible.