From: wsherman@ncsa.uiuc.edu (William R Sherman)
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: SGI Evangelist, etc., etc.
Date: 28 Feb 1996 07:31:28 GMT
Message-ID: <4h10cg$n1f@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: National Center for Supercomputing Applications


From: wsherman@ncsa.uiuc.edu (William R Sherman)

In article <313297AE.2781@sgi.com>, Joshua Larson-Mogal <mogal@sgihub.corp.sgi.com> writes:
> Normally I would just keep my thoughts to myself, but I simply can't
> understand the vehemence with which Bob has chosen to attack Silicon
> Graphics.

Actually Josh, I didn't read Bob's second note on this subject as an
attack on SGI, but rather, the person he specifically names in the
post.

> Robert Jacobson wrote:
> > 
> > From: cyberoid@u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson)
> > 
> > Just a point of order.
> > 
> > In an earlier post, I called to question SGI's press release's
> > focus on the negatives regarding virtual worlds.  John Wann
> > replied (first quoting me),

[...]

> > I doubt that John Wann has read very much if anything that I have
> > written.  Had he, he would have seen that I have been one of the
> > harshest critics of hype in our field -- but not at the cost of
> > promise and hope, two essential conditions of human endeavor.  People
> > in our field have eaten a lot of crow, much of it ingested at our own
> > hands; we don't need corpora- tions to tell us that we're sucky.

I think the question here is, who are "corporations?"  I read this as
meaning clients who want good VR.

>
> If I'm not mistaken, Worldesign, Bob Jacobson's company is indeed
> incorporated. Why are his thoughts any more valid than those of
> Silicon Graphics? Just because Worldesign is the "little guy" and SGI
> is the big, evil corporate behemouth? I would hope not. We should all
> be able to state our thoughts on the field without fear of pernicious
> flaming.
> 
> Silicon Graphics doesn't call anything "sucky". We simply want to help
> people understand that creating effective, safe VR applications is
> HARD!  Being hard, it means that you just can't do it with any old
> computer or any old software. Applications must be efficient and must
> take full advantage of powerful compute and graphics hardware. We just
> don't want to see VR die an early death (like the early promise and
> failure of AI) due to excessive claims.

Obviously Josh, you thought it meant SGI.  We obviously need better
ways of communicating.  (where we ~= english reading/writing humans).

> > Skepticism at SGI has a long and healthy history and, because of the
> > company's central role (at least until now) as the sole source of
> > usable technology, has seriously affected progress in our field.
> 
> 
> Affected? Has our development of the fastest graphics systems on the
> planet been such a detriment? We at Silicon Graphics are as aggressive
> as possible at bringing out high-performance graphics systems that
> meet our customers' needs. Onyx RealityEngine is widely accepted as
> the VR platform of choice because real applications demand real
> performance. If those customers of the Onyx systems could have used a
> PC, they would have. But VISUALIZE graphics wasn't enough...neither
> was CREATOR graphics. And neither will any of the new crop of low-cost
> 3D boards for PCs. They're all great for interactive graphics, but not
> for VR.

Again, I read "affected" in a whole different manner.  I read
"positivly affected," and you read "negatively affected."  I can't
swear to who read it right, only Bob can - unless he meant it to be
ambiguous.  Boy, this English stuff can be tricky.

[... more stuff deleted defending SGI - which may, or may not,
have required defending.]

> Just not foolish optimism.

My sentiments exactly, and I hope to help in the quest to explain
what VR is, and how it can be used, as soon as I can.  (ie. coming
soon).

> Respectfully,
> 
> Josh

Okay.  Josh, how about give Bob a couple machines, and you guys
can shake hands, and end this.  And Bob, send one of those my
way.  :-)

	Bill

And BTW, I thought Linda was evangelizing VR for you since last Summer.

/************************************************************************/
/* Bill Sherman	 (wsherman@ncsa.uiuc.edu)				*/
/* National Center for Supercomputing Applications			*/
/* University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign				*/
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