From: vanevery@blarg.net (Brandon J. Van Every)
Subject: Re: DESIGN: Is there really such a thing as text-based VR?
Date: 28 Feb 1996 21:07:50 GMT
Message-ID: <4h2g76$vpe@guysmiley.blarg.net>
Organization: Blarg! Online Services   206/441-9109


From: vanevery@blarg.net (Brandon J. Van Every)

Robin Hollands (R.Hollands@sheffield.ac.uk) wrote:
: From: Robin Hollands <R.Hollands@sheffield.ac.uk>

: I've yet to understand why text is included as an interface along with
: the others. There's a simple reason for this: put any person from any
: country in a VR system using graphics, or sound, or a tactile or any
: other sense synthesising system and they should have a good idea of
: the environment being presented to them. Now, put anyone in a
: 'text-based VR' system using a language unknown to them (e.g. put me
: in a system using anything other than English) and the entire
: experience would be lost. I guess the first countering argument to
: this would be 'well put a blind person in an HMD!'.

Well, with my background in sociocultural anthropology it wasn't the
first counter-argument that sprung to mind.  :-) Are you going to
insist, then, that the VR universe must always describe "real" space,
and be fairly devoid of linguistic constructs?  If so, then you are
eliminating an entire class of applications that are more symbolic in
nature: 3d icons, spatial file management systems, vector flow fields,
etc.  I think if you grabbed a Kayapo Indian from the Amazonian Basin
and dropped them into a VR simulation of Seattle, I think they'd know
what's going on.  But if you took them to Boeing and stuck them in a
VR wind tunnel simulation, I'm not so sure.

Cheers,


-- 
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