Re: Web Watch Column 23

Kevin Hughes ([email protected])
Mon, 17 Apr 95 16:42:13 PDT


> Here is a column I wrote about the Darmstadt conference. Feel free to
> distribute for non-commercial purposes.
>
> Day Zero in Darmstadt
> ...
>
> The highlight of the conference was the introduction of the Virtual Reality
> Modeling Language (VRML). The audience of 1400 people was strangely quiet as
> they tried to assimilate this huge technological leap. Then one person stood
> up and said, "This is day zero of a whole new era."

Again, sorry, that was me. :)
I was getting a bit mad listening to the presentation by Way Ting
(VP/General Manager of SGI's Visual Magic Division) - that was the one
titled "Silicon Graphics Inc.: A New Vision for the World-Wide Web".
I don't blame him for being proud of SGI's work, but I felt that the average
new user in the audience would infer from the presentation that SGI had
basically invented VRML.
So I stood up and mentioned Dave Raggett and his paper, the
Geneva BOF, Mark, Tony, Owen Rowley, and the Labyrinth Group/The Community
Company, Brian Behlendorf, the great work that was done on www-vrml
getting the 1.0 spec out, etc., etc. Unfortunately I neglected to
mention Tim Berners-Lee's (now silly sounding) initial posts on the
subject way back when, for which I apologize.
After all that I mentioned that since the idea was now in
everyone's minds, that this was Day Zero, and from here on out things
would not be the same.
I was shaking rather badly after saying all that, but I got
offered a few beers after the day was done, which helped some.
Long live VRML! Now let's get to work.

-- Kevin

--
Kevin Hughes * [email protected]
Enterprise Integration Technologies Webmaster (http://www.eit.com/)
Hypermedia Industrial Designer * Duty now for the future!