[X3D-Public] Challenge for X3D + HTML5

[John Carlson]

A long time ago (like 1987), I challenged a Sun employee to produce a  
system that supported a terminal emulator textured on a virtual office  
chair.  (that was my intent anyway, I'm not sure what he understood-- 
I'm not even sure virtual was in my vocabulary back then) Mozilla had/ 
has it's XMLTerm, which was HTML as a terminal emulator (very  
interesting, killing processes from your browser by clicking).  Is  
there any terminal emulator implemented in X3D or VRML?  Or should  
that be my next project?  I guess there have been graphical attempts  
at shells.  I am not referring to a shell, I am referring to something  
that will run a shell or emacs or vi, or other old school programs  
(the original rogue, nethack etc).
[Yes, it's my use case that X3D will have a vi editor & shell built  
in :)]

Here's a previous message Len quoted where I mention something similar:

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/publiclists/x3dpublic_list_archives/0702/msg00078.html

I don't see my reply to Len then, but my reply now would be:

Sound can be thought of "points sampling a curve", or words and notes  
or as curves/surfaces/volumes.  The three levels still exist in sound  
too.  Probably time has levels as well: now, day, and recurving seasons.

I tend to think that DOM & programs are fairly static.  Has anyone  
thought that they'd like to see how an email message was crafted, to  
see how the thoughts emerged, instead of the finished product?   
Shouldn't everything in computer have this feature, kind of like an  
animation, which allows backwards and forwards playing?  Where is time  
in an email message?  We're getting to the point where modifying DOMs  
(and programs) while they are running is important, especially for  
interactivity and productivity sake.

John "Retro&Futuro" Carlson