VRML timeline (draft)

Jan Hardenbergh (jch@nell.oki.com)
Tue, 28 Mar 95 00:05:00 E


Here is a start at a VRML timeline. If you have any additions or comments,
send them
to me. I'll resend a version when it seems more done.

In 1965, Ivan Sutherland laid out a research
program for computer graphics in a paper called "The
Ultimate Display" that has driven the field for the past
nearly thirty years. <A
HREF="ftp://sunee.uwaterloo.ca/pub/vr/documents/whatisvr.txt">whatisvr.txt</
A>

"One must look at a display screen, as a window
through which one beholds a virtual world. The challenge to
computer graphics is to make the picture in the window look
real, sound real and the objects act real." [quoted from
Computer Graphics V26#3]

Q2 1963 SKETCHPAD paper published, Ivan Sutherland
XXX-1969 ARPANET
Oct 1971 GINO paper published, P.A. Woodsford.
XXX-1979 MUD1 Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw (MUD FAQ)
XXX-1984 Gibson publishes Neuromancer
XXX-1988 IRC Internet Relay Chat written by Jarkko Oikarinen
MAR-1989 First Project Proposal - Tim Berners Lee
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/History.html
NOV-1990 First World Wide Web Prototype
NOV-1990 LambdaMOO starts up
AUG-1991 Web announced in alt.hypertext, comp.sys.next, comp.text.sgml,
comp.mail.multi-media
XXX-1992 Neal Stephenson publishes Snow Crash, use of avatar & metaverse
AUG-1992 SIGGRAPH92 (or 93) ?? Inventor announced ??
JAN-1993 XMosaic alpha released, 50 HTTP servers
SEP-1993 Mosaic for Mac, PC, in addition to X machines. (Web traffic 1% of
NSF backbone)
DE?-1993 Labyrinth application started Mark Pesce & Tony Parisi
???-1994 VRML term coined. http://vrml.wired.com/concepts/raggett.html
MAY-1994 1st Web Conference - Mark Pesce presents Cyberspace Protocol paper
MAY-1994 1st Web Conference - Mark Pesce and Brian Behlendorf convene VRML
BOF
JUL-1994 WebOOGL Tamara Munzner, Ed Chi, and Paul Burchard of the Geometry
Center
http://www.geom.umn.edu/docs/weboogl/weboogl.html
AUG-1994 SIGGRAPH94 - Discussion group for selecting basis of VRML
OCT-1994 2nd Web Conference - VRML Draft announced, NetScape beta.
NOV-1994 VRML 1.0 Draft - Gavin Bell, Tony Parisi and Mark Pesce.
DEC-1994 W3C - World Wide Web Consortium first meeting at MIT-LCS
JAN-1995 QvLib - VRML parser released
MAR-1995 Compuserve buys Spry
MAR-1995 Ubique Ltd. puts on virtual trade show http://www.ubique.com/