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Comment by deaddodo | Hacker News Reader

Whenever I see these old W3C docs mentioning old standards (MathML, in this case), it reminds me of how short-lived and little supported VRML was in browsers.

I remember a scant few months were it would run in maybe Netscape? And then there were a couple years it was supported via Java Applets before being completely phased away. At least, in the web space; maybe it found purchase elsewhere.

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If you're looking for something similar still you may want to checkout https://aframe.io/ -- it's JS library(s) and you load them, then use custom tags in HTML to create VR worlds. it's rad.

I remember seeing VRML as a kid and I was mindblown. If I recall correctly, it ran in IE 4 with an add-on. I really thought, only a few more weeks and I can build games like Doom myself running in a browser.

Well, with my assessment I was off over a decade lol.

Last week I went to some meetup and met a young guy raving about every website is going to be VR in about two years. I didn’t even know about VRML.

I built an entire website in VRML. It was fun.

I recall the biggest hindrance to VRML, aside requiring a plugin, was that most computers didn’t have hardware acceleration for 3D rendering. So performance was too poor to do anything useful for wide audiences.

Whenever I hear VRML, I am reminded of this Aptiva commercial from the 90's with the "3D San Francisco" site. Was always bummed as a kid that I never actually could find it online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROOSUiLEesA

Assuming you’re talking about MathML, there’s nothing outdated or short-lived about it. Browser support is reasonably good nowadays[1], MathJax always supported it, KaTeX by default outputs MathML alongside HTML, etc.

[1] https://caniuse.com/mathml

I didn't mean MathML specifically was unused, just that it reminded me of other niche/auxiliary standards that have been supported, many of which have been dropped.

In Australia, we've still got VRML in our mandatory teaching points.

https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/ICTWEB452

I remember being like 15 and being excited about vrml. I think I knew one page with a working demo, and I used to tell people it was going to be the future.

This could be the alternative to Second Life(which had a web client), with each site being a virtual world.

That’s my VR dream. A federation of independent sites where each can have its own unique properties sounds like the way to go. I imagine my site having doors that link to other sites. Maybe when you use one, your browser caches a backlink so you can turn around and walk back.

I’d vastly rather play with this than any system operated by a single company.

Adobe actually tried something like that 20 years ago. The 3D worlds were even scriptable with Javascript and it all ran in the browser (with a plugin).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Atmosphere

That sounds as unappealing as actual Second Life.

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