Thank you for digging out that CD-rom

Sony
Senior Software Engineer


Masayuki Ishikawa



Dear Mr Ishikawa,










Thank you for digging out that CD-rom when you're quite content to be forging ahead and creating great new worlds!




Since you are unlike Mr Kamachi etc. who have left Sony, I am extremely lucky to be able to contact you. It's all thanks to Dr Lea, and I thank him to a great extent for doing so much for me. I've seen your recent presentations, and I plan to ask several small questions later (not here) about various Sony software that I believe were great but are no longer released. As the design/implementation/team leader for 3D graphics software development in C++/VRML2.0/JAVA on Windows (1995-1998), did you have anything to do with Communityplace Bureau Ver.2.01,Community Place Bureau WLS Ver.2.0 or Community Place Application Object ServerVer.1.01?




You may know Open Wonderland or Blaxxun as similar kinds of virtual world software. However, not one of them has the qualities of CP. So I now ask, does Sony ever want to make CP open source for X3D developers to create a companion to Blender and X3d edit?




I'm not too serious at the moment, but i know Sony won't just release ancient stuff even if it's 20 years old.










I'd like to know what you think about this! - even if it's not a favourable answer this time!








Yours sincerely,


NSK








Thanks for checking my presentations. If you are interested in my recent work, you can also find YouTube videos. :)






Anyway, there were several teams in Sony Community Place project. And actually I was a lead software engineer of the Conductor team but 'the Bureau and the Application Object Server' were lead by other engineers and I was not involved in the teams.






As for the source code, I might have some of the them but it would be difficult to compile since I don't have old toolchains and perhaps some libraries are missing. Of course, We would need permissions to disclose the source code and need much more non-technical efforts... :(






Dear Mr Ishikawa,




I would like to sincerely thank you for giving those interested (like me) a free copy of the full, last, official, legendary, result of your team’s hard work from 1995-1998 in the form of the CPC CD-ROM.




It has been a great pleasure for me, doing what Dr Lea calls ‘archaeology’. I call it research. Dumb research but maybe rewarding. I’m not sure why CP software remained in my memory. The reason lies in the VAIO PCs. Some people prefer just text and multimedia as the ‘face of the Internet’. I prefer 3D. T.Noma said that the aim of 3D was not found yet despite advances in 3D hardware. My main point here: VAIO had a load of good software. As a user of over 15 VAIO PCs, my favourites are: SSMS, CP, x-アプリ, and Yamaha’s XGStudio. DSD Direct Player’s UI also left a deep impression.




Now you must be getting bored, so I’ll cut straight to the point. Since I rarely get to communicate with actual employees, my requests are many but numbered.





藤本健’s Digital Audio Lab had a request from 2013. Even I want DSEE HX to be ported into X-Applications. Even if it’s just for those who buy hardware. If you ever see this discussion in the company, please make it happen- since you’ve been doing NuttX stuff and Audio products like IC Recorders.



Can you tell me what happened to SS Mastering Studio after 2009’s SSMSRE? Even without plugins and SBM, it’s valuable. What happened to VAIO’s DSD Chip and DSD Direct Player? Any source codes for the audio community?



Now this one is the troubling request that has never before been attempted. Many users of CP have had this dream, which is why I believe Sony should do it. It’s been 20 years, trademarks are gone, technology’s improved so much that CP is almost nonsense, but I believe that now IS the time. I watched your videos (didn’t understand the technical detail completely). Since Sony is using open-source stuff for their hardware, shouldn’t 20 year old VRML stuff be made public? You gave Dr Lea the link and CD (I wanted CPC because of my uncle’s work in VRML in Japan). But now I’m unhappy with all that X3D proprietary software and even X3D Edit and Blender. I want to see an easy to use software suite (open source) that allows the creation not of X3DOM but the multiuser of VRML. I want to see a multiuser X3D; something better than marketing, 3D-IES of NRI, Virtual Kids Park, Virtual Ryoanji, everything that ever happened. And I’m not going to repeat failures associated with marketing and education or chatting.




Is it impossible to achieve? Nothing should be impossible.




By allowing X3D developers to advance the old CP browser to, say, ‘Blendo’, a browser without plugins for web browsers or ‘help application’ browsers; a sophisticated server package (keeping the name Bureau but no more WLS/AOS etc because it will be integrated into a single package) that has greater security and compatibility with Windows 10; and a totally new but similar Conductor which works in a web browser, there will be much more of a future for X3D. Also, any Java should be upgraded to be compatible, or just kicked out anyway.




I think many people will add more, blend X3D with VR or augmented Reality, move Skype or Twitter (PostPet Now was a failure) into it so it’s not just multimedia but an actual space (unlimited space + autogenerated like Minecraft-to address the issue of 3D contents generation-too costly)


I have a proposal you may laugh about, but I am serious. I was disappointed when I saw Cosmo Worlds 2.0 get ‘buried into nowhere’. They really should have made it open source. Now is Sony’s chance to dig up trash (I call it treasure) and we’ll make jewels from it. Give the X3D community something that isn’t X3DOM (our only hope and way out at the moment-how ridiculous), for we are embarking on a revolutionary journey today.


Happy 20th Anniversary of Conductor!


NSK






P.S. I liked your little About window trick- and I see Mr Kamachi's name too:) Good on him-2nd place


29/05/2017








Hi,










Before starting detail discussion on our code, could you tell me what you are? (Sorry I can not find your web site. Do you have any articles/papers/presentations on the web?)










Thanks,




Hi

I do not think there will be any too detailed discussion- for i am not a programmer by trade. I can tell you who or what I am: No official site, no published documents either bearing my name, and a quick search will reveal nothing of me-i have no internet presence at all at the moment, sorry.




I'm familiar with VRML and X3D well enough-partially taught myself too, as well as at uni.
Oh, and i am part of a group of x3dom developers!
Hence my interest in your work and other requests for sony.

Kind regards,

NSKa