{"id":1378,"date":"2007-08-29T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2007-08-29T14:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1378"},"modified":"2007-08-31T10:39:18","modified_gmt":"2007-08-31T14:39:18","slug":"from-virtus-to-qwaq-the-hard-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1378","title":{"rendered":"From Virtus to Qwaq the Hard Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks I’ve been going through a rather large stash of magazines; many of them computer- or technology-related. Among them were a significant number of Apple II magazines dating from the late 80’s to early 90’s. Unlike many of the others, which I perused rather closely for articles and how-to’s and the like, I simply rifled through the covers of these ancient dead tree scrolls; mostly out of nostalgia.
\n
\nA few, however, caught my attention and I actually flipped through their pages. Topics ranged from which internet service to use circa 1991, to methods for moving hypercard<\/a> stacks from Apple II’s over to MacIntosh computers.<\/p>\n

Of equal interest to me were the ads; most with heavily-pixelated graphics only a graphic designer love. In an age when computers didn’t actually ship with hard disk drives, things looked extraordinarily<\/em> primitive by today’s standards. The tools we have now seem unbelievable within that frame of reference. It felt good to be reminded of that fact.<\/p>\n

One inCider\/A+ magazine in particular got my attention with a cover that boldly read “Design It Yourself: CAD Software for Armchair Architects”. What generally passed for CAD software in 1991 is genuinely amusing.<\/p>\n

Although that particular magazine was primarily for Apple II owners, there was a transition phase during this period where people were jumping over to Mac’s, and as a result the magazines began running sidebars for Mac owners. In this case, there’s a sidebar calling attention to CAD applications available for their computer.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, listed on that sidebar is a program called Virtus WalkThrough 1.0. I recall reading about that one. Here’s the short write-up they gave for it:<\/p>\n

Here’s one name you can take literally. Billed as a designer’s “Idea processor,” WalkThrough’s forte is converting 2D drawings to 3D, letting you navigate the renderings as if you were taking an honest-to-goodness tour of the model. Use the mouse to peek into windows, move from room to room, or pull back for a bird’s-eye view. WalkThrough can give your clients a “virtual reality” visualization of a finished project – without investing in an expensive computer workstation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s particularly interesting is that if you do a search for that application, you discover it was created by David A. Smith. That name rang a bell so I did a quick search. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about him:<\/p>\n

Smith founded Virtus Corporation in 1990 and developed Virtus Walkthrough, the first real-time 3D design application for personal computers.<\/strong>
\n…
\nHe is currently one of six principal architects of the Croquet project<\/strong> (along with Alan Kay, Julian Lombardi, Andreas Raab, David P. Reed, and Mark P. McCahill). Smith is currently CTO and co-founder of Qwaq, Inc.<\/strong> Qwaq is focused on developing Croquet into a solution for the enterprise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whaddaya know.<\/p>\n

I’ve surfed through Mr. Smith’s blog<\/a> on occasion, but wasn’t aware of his distinguished background. Now that I’m aware, I’ll be paying a bit more attention.<\/p>\n

Glad I held onto that magazine for the last 16 years. Maybe I won’t throw it away just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks I’ve been going through a rather large stash of magazines; many of them computer- or technology-related. Among them were a significant number of Apple II magazines dating from the late 80’s to early 90’s. Unlike … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}