From: deloura@cs.unc.edu (Mark A. DeLoura)
Summary: Also from Bob Jacobson
Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1993 12:10:49 -0400
Subject: ADMIN: Passing the Keyboard -- Reflections on three years of s.v-w....
Reply-To: deloura@cs.unc.edu,bob@worldesign.com


From Bob: Mark's eloquent remembrances of sci.virtual-worlds, from its
humble beginnings in 1990 through its decisive role today, speaks for
both of us.  We, the former CoModerators of sci.virtual-worlds, must
bid you farewell.  It's been a rare privilege to help maintain our
community's most constant voice, sci.virtual-worlds -- your voice, the
voice of the people who make up the virtual worlds movement.  We wish
the best to those who follow and look forward to seeing all of you
here and soon on sci.virtual-worlds.apps.  Thank you again for all
your support and encouragement, and most of all, your participation in
our common movement to enhance human understanding, over the years.
And now, here's are some memories from Mark, as we, your "CoModerators
Emeriti," pass the keyboard....

			      =-=-=-=-=-=-

Reflections...
--------------

The sci.virtual-worlds newsgroup has spanned three years now, and
things have changed quite a bit.  The moderation of this newsgroup has
passed from the hands of Howard Rheingold, to Steve Aukstakalnis, and
then to Bob Jacobson and me.  Now it is about to be passed once again,
to a group of people at the HIT Lab led by Toni Emerson, Cybrarian
Extraordinaire.
 
From the first post, by an unidentified "Don" in February 1990,
sci.virtual-worlds has served as a global forum for discussion of many
topics related to Virtual Reality and the development of its
surrounding technologies.  We've grown from a small discussion group
of a dozen or so posts a week to a major source of breaking news on VR
technology for approximately 40,000 people worldwide.
 
And just as the newsgroup has grown, so has interest in Virtual
Reality.  At the time of sci.virtual-worlds' creation, only a handful
of sites were really working with the technology.  These included
scientists at NASA, the military, the HIT Lab, UNC, and VPL.  But not
many really thought of their work as "Virtual Reality", per se.  The
term, coined by Jaron Lanier, hadn't been in use for long at the time.
It still hasn't gained acceptance in academia (where it is more likely
to be called "virtual environments"), but the association of the term
"Virtual Reality" with real-time 3D graphics and immersive display
techniques was sealed when Howard Rheingold came out with the first
(and arguably still the best) book on the technology.
 
It was soon after the genesis of the newsgroup that members began
talking about how to hook up low-cost versions of the high-tech
devices in use at research centers so that they, too, could experience
this thing called "VR".  The Mattel/AGE PowerGlove, a low-cost version
of the VPL DataGlove designed to attach to Nintendo home video game
systems, was hacked and attached to personal computers.  Intrepid
newsgroup readers and hardware hackers also created ways to hook up
the Sega shutter glasses to their home computers, which gave them
another small taste of the power of immersive technology.  Talk of
circuits for attaching the PowerGlove and shutter glasses to PCs began
to dominate the newsgroup, until it was for the most part moved off to
a separate mailing list.
 
During this time of increasing interest in homebrew VR equipment one
company really began dominating the small market for high-powered VR
software and hardware.  VPL, led by the vision of Jaron Lanier, grew
to become *the* company one thought of when the term Virtual Reality
was brought up.  VPL came out with a complete virtual world-building
system, composed of a head-mounted display (EyePhones), trackers
(Polhemus magnetic trackers), a device for virtual object manipulation
(the DataGlove), and high-powered graphics renderers to back it all
up, built by Silicon Graphics Inc.
 
However, other companies soon began to nibble into VPL's market share.
Division came out with a competing hardware/software platform.
Sense8's WorldToolKit provided an alternative set of software tools
for world- building.  Virtual Research brought out their Flight
Helmet, a more rugged head-mounted display than VPL's EyePhones.
Cheaper trackers were built by Logitech and more accurate trackers
built by Ascension.  And people began to realize that as fun as it was
to be able to grab objects in virtual space, the inaccuracies and
computational load inherent in the technology which the DataGlove was
made of were really not worth the novelty of the idea at this point.
 
VPL's "re-organization" in December of 1992 came as a surprise to
many.  But the effect of this move has had more of a beneficial effect
in the long run, as former members of VPL moved away to become
consultants or start their own companies, providing more VR-related
jobs and products.
 
With all of this movement around VR in the San Francisco Bay area,
Hollywood was sure to notice.  The movie "The Lawnmower Man" was
created, a bastard child of Stephen King and Virtual Reality
technology.  The storyline, based around intelligence amplification
through so-called smart drugs and Virtual Reality, gave a solid boost
to the hype surrounding the field.  Its "Virtual Reality" clips,
obviously created by meticulous rendering techniques which took
minutes or hours to render a frame as opposed to fractions of a
second, did even more to attract the attention of the public.  Touring
the country at the time of the movie, a VR arcade game designed by W
Industries caught much of the attention of those turned on to the
technology by this movie.  Unfortunately, the reality of the state of
Virtual Reality is nowhere as complex at that depicted in the movie,
and so many of the people who play the game come away disappointed by
the "state- of-the-art".
 
VR and Smart Drugs.  And cyberpunk novels.  And rave music?  And lava
lamps, X, Midi Balls, the return of the 70's?  Who would have thought
that these would come together?  Well, it's happened, is happening--
the growing "cyberculture" has become large enough to even grab the
attention of big-name magazines like "Time".  Led by the glossy "Mondo
2000", the cyberculture has brought yet more attention to VR.

Fortunately, not all of the published work on VR out there is as far
out as Mondo-- since Rheingold's book we've seen a number of wonderful
books on VR, including Aukstakalnis & Blatner's "Silicon Mirage" and
Pimentel and Teixeira's "Through the New Looking Glass".  Lately,
another new crop of books has sprouted up, by Michael Heim, Francis
Hamit, Alan Wexelblat...
 
In fact, the big problem that seems to plague both the newsgroup and
the newsstand these days is the incredible number of sources of
information.  A great number of conferences have appeared, and many
magazines and books as well.  It's getting quite difficult just to
separate the wheat from the chaff.  There is *not* enough research
going on to support all the conferences, so much of the same
information is simply being repeated over and over again.  It's the
same way with the large number of survey books, but fortunately many
of the authors have now turned to more technical issues, which provide
more substance to discuss.  The decision of which of these conferences
and books become the definitive information providers will really be
decided by those who are voting with their money--the consumers.

The amount of information flowing through sci.virtual-worlds has not
been an exception to this trend.  Many people have expressed their
dismay at the increasing number of posts coming through the newsgroup.
As with many newsgroups, the increased volume has pushed away many of
the more interesting technical discussions--those who took part in
these discussions simply got tired of wading through the noise in
order to pick up the few interesting ideas being tossed around.  And
yet, all of it is valuable and wonderful in that it shows just how
large and diverse our community has grown.
 
It is with this in mind that Bob and I begin our new quest, attempting
to create an area of information which is more closely moderated, to
take some of the volume out of the sci.virtual-worlds newsgroup and
provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio.  Applications of Virtual
Reality are just beginning to really come into use, so the creation of
the newsgroup sci.virtual-worlds.apps is definitely an idea whose time
has come.

It's been a joy working with you all in various ways during the three
years I've been a part of the operation of sci.virtual-worlds, and I
hope that you will continue to find the information provided over both
newsgroups worth the time it takes each day to read them.

     ---Mark A. DeLoura
        deloura@cs.unc.edu