I was so excited about VRML in 1996. I thought it was going to take over the world of molecular graphics -- all we would have to do is write molecule-to-VRML translators, rather than writing free-standing OpenGL applications. It's taken a surprisingly long time to get to the point I thought we would be 25 years ago. Three.js turns out to be what everyone was looking for back then.
Yeah. The hardware requirements were brutal though. I had access to SGI's back in college and they were choking on the 3d aspects for whatever reason.
I remember they had VRML to WWW hooks, and navigating that would take you from one VRML world to another VRML on the web kind of like a portal. It was a fascinating way to visualize the web (kinda like an open Metaverse) and I'd like to see a return to that so that one company doesn't rule the Metaverse.
