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QUOTE 38 from:
Mc Kenzie, J. (1994) 'Virtual Reality: Performance, Immersion, and the Thaw.' The Drama Review. 38: (4), winter T144. pp: 83-107.

'queued for long periods while awaiting a few moments of immersion, I often conducted an informal survey, asking the folks in line with me a single question: "What does 'performance' mean to you?" ...The most frequent response was "speed" followed by "efficiency". On one occasion, however, standing in line for over an hour to ride Silicon Graphic's virtual Pterodactyl, I generated a debate among several young computer scientists. Some argued that performance meant "speed" and "efficiency", some "quality", and some "ease of use". Other responses included "capability", "features", "reliability" and "repeatability". The most formalised answer came from a quiet man with a slavic accent: "Qualitatively, [it's] inversely proportional to the amount of effort and time, in relation to the result." Next to this response I wrote "input/output ratios", which as we will see in just a moment, is central to the technological performance paradigm. All these responses share one trait: "performance" refers to technical criterion for evaluating computer systems. And performance is such a common term in the computer graphics industry that one of the trade show's corridors bore the name "High Performance Drive".'

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