From: Daniel Pezely <pezely@cis.udel.edu>
Subject: Re: so called cyberspace conferences
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 01:11:17 -0500
Organization: HITL, R+D Cowboys (EntityOS Group, U of Del)


cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>sharp@cs-sun-fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Maurice Sharp) writes:
>>The paper even predicts cyberspace/vr ideas, before there was even a
>>conference !!
>
>So did Gibson.  And what does Gibson know about computers?  Nothing, by his
>own admission.

Folks, 

Cyberspace, VR, or whatever else you wish to call, it is not an invention
of any single person, but it is what we all, ideally, want computers to be.
[That's we, as in everyone, not just c.s., e.e., etc, people.]

The desire for tools which are actually useful, without interfering with
the task which they were intended for, has been around for a very long time.

It's only now that the technology is ALMOST capable of doing what we want.

As interactive as some computer systems are today, they're still pretty
poor.  Even all of the VR systems that are displayed at conferences are
lame.  In many people's ideal systems, you shouldn't have to learn a
gesture language to move about in a virtual environment; if it's not
completely intuitive, then there's more to be done yet.

But, it's closer to what we want than other things have been in the past! 


Relating all this to what's on the subject line:
Researchers of all kinds are finding out new things that are stemming from
virtual realities, so there is a bit more to it than what anyone could have
imagined, but then again, isn't that true about most technologies and
sciences?  

That is what the conferences are for: not implementation details of VR
systems, but applications, findings, and new ideas.  The VR frenzy at
SIGGRAPH or any of the other ACM conferences which might have VR stuff
deals with applications in that area.  A single, true-VR system will be
discussed in more groups and at more conferences than any of us can
imagine.  You'd be surprised at who is talking about it...


-Daniel

PS - Guys: pretty soon, you should start cross-posting to alt.flame  :-)