ABSTRACT
According to St. John, there were still enemies within Microsoft who would throw roadblocks in the way or try to seize control of their projects. Unlike every other division, Microsoft Research, or just Research as people referred to it, had no requirement to develop products or to make money directly. Bill Gates was intrigued by Talisman and supported it, but members of the DirectX team, including St. John and evangelist Ty Graham hated it. There are many stories about the internal battles over Talisman, with rationale provided on both sides of the argument, but in the end, Talisman took too long to get to market, and by the time it was ready to be released, the graphics market had passed it by. The battles between advocates of OpenGL and Direct3D raged for many months, escalating when graphics guru John Carmack wrote what was to become an infamous post on a user group that blasted Direct3D and fully endorsed OpenGL.
