Carmack emerged hardened, cynical, and burning to hack. His parents agreed to get
him an Apple II (though they didn’t know he used the money to buy a hot one from a
kid he had met in the juvenile home). He found he most liked programming the graphics,
inventing something in a binary code that came to life on screen. It gave him a kind
of feedback and immediate gratification that other kinds of programming lacked.
Carmack read up on 3-D graphics and cobbled together a wire-frame version of the MTV
logo, which he managed to spin around on his screen. The real way to explore the world
of graphics, he knew, was to make a game. Carmack didn’t believe in waiting for the
muse. He decided it was more efficient to use other people’s ideas. Shadowforge, his
first game, resembled Ultima in many ways but featured a couple of inventive programming
tricks, such as characters who attacked in arbitrary directions as opposed to the
ordinary cardinal ones. It also became his first sale: earning a thousand dollars
from a company called Nite Owl Productions, a mom ’n’ pop publisher that made most
of its income from manufacturing camera batteries. Carmack used the money to buy himself
an Apple II GS, the next step up in the Apple’s line.
He strengthened his body to keep up with his mind. He began lifting weights, practicing
judo, and wrestling. One day after school, a bully tried to pick on Carmack’s neighbor,
only to become a victim of Carmack’s judo skills. Other times Carmack fought back
with his intellect. After being partnered with him for an earth science project, a
bully demanded that Carmack do all the work himself. Carmack agreed. They ended up
getting an F. “How could you get an F?” the bully said. “You’re the smartest guy around.”
Carmack had purposely failed the project, sacrificing his own grade rather than let
the oaf prevail.
Carmack’s increasingly cocksure attitude was not going over well at home. After he
became more combative with his stepmother—whose vegetarianism and mystical beliefs
incensed the young pragmatic—his father rented an apartment where Carmack and his
younger brother, Peter, could live while they finished high school. The first day
there, Carmack plugged in his Apple II, tacked a magazine ad for a new hard drive
to his wall, and got to work. There were games to make.
One night in 1987, Carmack saw the ultimate game. It occurred in the opening episode
of
a new television series,
Star Trek: The Next Generation,
when the captain visited the ship’s Holodeck, a futuristic device that could simulate
immersive environments for relaxation and entertainment. In this case, the door opened
to reveal a tropical paradise. Carmack was intrigued. This was
the
virtual world. It was just a matter of finding the technology to make it happen.
In the meantime, Carmack had his own games to pursue. Having graduated high school,
he was ready to cash in the trust fund that his father, years before, had told him
would be available when he turned eighteen. But when he went to retrieve the money,
he found that his mother had transferred it to her account in Seattle. She had no
intention of letting her son use the fund for some ridiculous endeavor like trying
to go into business making computer games. Her philosophy had not wavered: if you
want to go into computers, then you need to go to college, preferably MIT, get a degree,
and get a job with a good company like IBM.
Carmack fired off a vitriolic letter:
“Why can’t you realise
[
sic
] that it isn’t your job to direct me anymore?” But there was no swaying his mother,
who argued that her son had yet to balance his checkbook, let alone manage his finances.
If Carmack wanted the money, he would have to sign up for college, pay for the courses
himself, and then, if he earned grades that she deemed worthy, he would be reimbursed.
In the fall of 1988, the eighteen-year-old Carmack reluctantly enrolled at the University
of Kansas, where he signed up for an entire schedule of computer classes. It was a
miserable time. He couldn’t relate to the students, didn’t care about keg parties
and frat houses. Worse were the classes, based on memorizing information from textbooks.
There was no challenge, no creativity. The tests weren’t just dull, they were insulting.
“Why can’t you just give us a project and let us perform it?” Carmack scrawled on
the back of one of his exams. “I can perform anything you want me to!” After enduring
two semesters, he dropped out.
Much to his mother’s chagrin, Carmack took a part-time job at a pizza parlor and immersed
himself in his second game,
Wraith
. It was an exhausting process that required him constantly to insert and eject floppy
disks in order to save the data because his Apple II GS didn’t come with a hard drive.
He labored over a story included in the game’s “about” file:
WRAITH
“THE DEVIL’S DEMISE”
For a long while all was peaceful on the island of Arathia. Your duties as protector
of the temple of Metiria at Tarot were simple and uneventful. Recently things have
changed. An unknown influence has caused the once devout followers of the true god
Metiria to waver in their faith.
Corruption has spread through the island, with whispers of an undead being of great
might granting power to those who would serve. The lords of the realms fell to him
one by one, and monsters now roam the land. The temple at Tarot is the last outpost
of true faith, and you may be Arathia’s last hope for redemption.
Last night, as you prayed for strength and guidance, Metiria came to you in a vision,
bestowing upon you the quest to destroy the Wraith. She spoke solemnly, alerting you
to the dangers which lay ahead. The only way to reach the hell that the Wraith rules
from is by way of an interplanar gate somewhere in Castle Strafire, stronghold of
his most powerful earthly minions.
Although the castle is only a short distance away from Tarot, on an island to the
northeast, a terrible reef prevents it from being reached by conventional means. You
only know that monsters have come from the castle and turned up on the mainland. Remember,
although many have been seduced by the power of the Wraith, greed still rules their
hearts, and some may even aid your quest if paid enough gold. As the vision fades,
Metiria smiles and says, “Fear not, brave one, my blessing is upon you.”
You have begun preparing yourself for your quest, but even the townspeople seem unwilling
to help you. They insist on gold for equipment and spells. Gold you do not have. Gold
that the servants of the Wraith do have . . .
Carmack sent the game to Nite Owl, the publisher of Shadowforge, which snapped it
up. Though the graphics were not breakthrough—they had the chunky stick figures of
most games—the game was huge in scope compared with most titles, offerings hours more
of play. He earned twice as much this time, two thousand dollars, despite the fact
that the game, like Shadowforge, was not a big seller. Carmack used the cash to finance
his other hobby: modifying his car, a brown MGB.
Though he was barely getting by, Carmack relished the freelance lifestyle. He was
in control of his time, slept as late as he wanted, and, even better, answered to
no one. If he could simply program the computer, fix up his car, and play D&D for
the rest of his life, he would be happy. All he needed to do was churn out more games.
It didn’t take long for him to find another buyer listed in the back of a computer
magazine: a small company in Shreveport, Louisiana, called Softdisk. After buying
his first submission—a Tennis game with impressive physics of the rise and fall of
balls over a net—they immediately wanted more. Taking a cue from the Ultima series,
Carmack, already a shrewd businessman, suggested selling not just one game but a trilogy:
why not triple his earnings? Softdisk accepted the offer, contracting him to do a
trilogy of role-playing games called Dark Designs.
Carmack learned another way to cash in: converting his Apple II games for a new breed
of computer called the IBM PC. He knew next to nothing about this system but was not
one to turn down a programming challenge. So he drove to a store and rented a PC.
Within a month he sent Softdisk not only an Apple II version of Dark Designs but a
version converted, or “ported,” for a PC as well. Working long into the night, Carmack
got his process so down pat he could create one game and port three versions: one
for the Apple, one for the Apple II GS, and one for the PC. Softdisk would buy each
and every one.
With every new game, the company begged Carmack to come down for an interview.
Who was this kid who’d taught himself an entirely new programming language in half
the time it would take a normal person?
Carmack declined at first—why screw up his life by going to work for a company? But
eventually their persistence won him over. He had just put some nice new parts in
his MGB and could use an excuse for a long drive. After all those years on his own,
he hardly expected to meet someone who had something to teach him.
THREE
Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement
Shreveport was renowned in
the art of simulation long before the gamers arrived.
In 1864, Confederate soldiers
at Fort Turnbull duped invaders by positioning charred tree trunks on mounted wagons
as if they were cannons. Spotting the apparent artillery, Union soldiers fled in fear.
When a Confederate general came to inspect the site, he told the fort’s commander
that his defenses were “nothing but a bunch of humbug.” The site became known as Fort
Humbug.
One hundred and twenty-seven years later, there were new simulated weapons in town—inside
the computer games of Softdisk. The company was helmed by Al Vekovius, a former math
professor at Louisiana State University at Shreveport. Though only in his forties,
Al had a receding hairline with strands sticking up as if he had just taken his hands
off one of those static electricity spheres found at state fairs. He dressed in muted
ties and sweaters but possessed the eccentric streak shared by the students and faculty
he would visit in the university computer lab during his job there in seventies. At
the time the Hacker Ethic was reverberating from MIT to Silicon Valley. As head of
the academic computing section at the school, Al, by vocation and passion, was plugged
in from the start. He wasn’t tall or fat, but the kids affectionately called him Big
Al.
Energized by this emerging zeitgeist, in 1981 Al and another LSUS mathematician, Jim
Mangham, hatched a business scheme: a computer software subscription club. For a small
fee, a subscriber would receive a new disk every month filled with a variety of utility
and entertainment programs, from checkbook balancing software to solitaire. The plan
filled what to Al and his partner seemed like an obvious niche: the computer hobbyist.
At the time the big software publishers largely neglected individual consumers, focusing
instead on reaching businesses through retail. Though hobbyists congregated on BBSs,
the computer bulletin board services online, early modems were still too slow to provide
a viable distribution means. A monthly disk seemed like a perfect way to distribute
wares to the underground. It also seemed like a great way to give exposure to young
coders, who did not have another means through which to distribute their programs;
it was like an independent record label, putting unsigned bands on compilation albums.
In 1981 Softdisk’s first disk went out for users of the Apple II. Business went well,
and the company soon expanded with programs for both Apple and Commodore computers.
In 1986 the company launched a subscription disk for the IBM personal computer and
its burgeoning clones
, machines that could run the same operating systems. Personal computers at long last
were plummeting into affordability. As a result, a world of new computer users—sometimes
called “newbies”—opened up. By 1987 Softdisk had 100,000 subscribers who were paying
$9.95 per month to get the disks. Al was voted Shreveport’s businessman of the year.
The good times brought challenges. Al was soon running a $12 million company with
120 employees and feeling overwhelmed. Competition followed, including a company in
New Hampshire called Uptime. In the winter of 1989, Al phoned Jay Wilbur, an Uptime
editor he had met at a gaming convention, and asked him if he wanted to come down
and help. Jay, who was growing tired of the cold and feeling underappreciated by the
Uptime owner, agreed to run Softdisk’s Apple II department. He also mentioned that
he knew two game programmers, John Romero and Lane Roathe—a former Uptime programmer—who
were looking for work too.
Al was thrilled. Though he had occasionally been including games on his disks, he
sensed an opportunity to expand into the emerging PC entertainment marketplace. He
could see other successful companies like Sierra On-Line, Broderbund, and Origin doing
well in games. There was no reason that Softdisk couldn’t have a larger piece of that
pie as well. He told Jay to bring the gamers down too.
For Romero,
the stakes couldn’t have been higher. He had just been through a series of disappointments,
from the unrelenting winters of New Hampshire to his faulty gamble to leave his dream
job at Origin for his boss’s ill-fated start-up. His wife and kids were clear across
the country, waiting to see how his fortune would turn. Despite his early successes,
a family life was once again slipping to the wayside. He hoped a new life down south
would turn things around.
The road trip from New Hampshire to Shreveport that summer of 1989 was just the prescription.
Along the way, he bonded with his fellow gamers, Lane and Jay. Lane, with whom Romero
had lived for a month, was very much a kindred spirit. Five years older than Romero,
Lane came from a similar background. He’d grown up in Colorado, not far from where
Romero was born, raised on heavy metal, underground comics, and computer games. Easygoing,
with long hair wrapped in a bandanna, Lane got along perfectly with Romero. Though
he didn’t share Romero’s insurmountable energy or ambition, he too loved the nuances,
tricks, and thrills of Apple II programming. And, like Romero, all he wanted to do
was make games. While in New Hampshire, the two even decided to merge their one-man-band
companies—Romero’s Capitol Ideas and Lane’s Blue Mountain Micro—under one roof as
Ideas from the Deep.
Jay was an Apple II guy as well, but of a different nature. By his own admission,
he wasn’t much of a programmer. But he had two important qualities that Romero respected:
a genuine understanding of Apple II code and an intense passion for games. Seven years
older than Romero, the thirty-year-old Jay grew up in Rhode Island as the son of an
insurance adjuster and a gift card saleswoman. In high school Jay was tall but not
skilled in sports. Instead he had a way with machines, whether racking up high scores
in Asteroids or dismantling his motorcycle. He used the money he received from insurance
after a motorcycle accident in his early twenties to buy his first Apple II.
It didn’t take long for Jay to realize that his predisposition was not for the solitary
lifestyle of code. He was much more suited for the world of schmoozing and good times,
a world he excelled in as a bartender at a neighborhood T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant.
He became beloved in his bar and was even selected to teach Tom Cruise how to mix
drinks in preparation for the bartender film
Cocktail.
Jay’s people skills led to him into restaurant management. Later at Uptime he was
able to combine his skills: as a manager and as a game enthusiast. Now, at Softdisk,
he was ready to soar even higher.
By the time they hit Shreveport, Lane, Romero, and Jay felt like old friends. They
had made an adventure of the trip down, stopping for a few days at Disney World. As
they pulled up in Shreveport, however, they had no sense of their future or, for that
matter, if they had even arrived. Baked into the northwest corner of Louisiana just
a tobacco spit from Texas, Shreveport was in rough shape in 1989. A busted oil boom
had left the area deflated and depressed. The air was thick with humidity, made thicker
by the overgrown patches of swamps. Downtown crawled with homeless people escaping
the heat in the shadows of run-down brick buildings—including the offices of Softdisk.
Softdisk occupied two buildings
in the downtown area. The administration office was built under a blacktop parking
lot; the passing street sloped down a hill near the door. It was like working in an
ant farm. As the gamers arrived, Al burst through the door with sparkling eyes, gushing
about how quickly the company was growing and how eagerly he wanted their help. Romero
and Lane showed him an Asteroids knockoff they’d made called Zappa Roids. Al was impressed,
not only by their obvious programming abilities but by their youthful zeal.
Romero made his ambition clear from the start—he had no interest in working on utility
programs; he wanted only to make big commercial games. That was fine with Al, who
explained how excited he was to get into the gaming world. Romero and Lane would be
the first two employees in a new Special Projects division devoted solely to making
games. On the way out, Al patted Romero on the back and said, “By the way, let me
know if you boys need an apartment to rent. I’ve got some places in town; I’m a landlord
too.”
Romero, Lane, and Jay left Softdisk’s business office for the building where the programmers
and “talent” worked. For a software company, it sure didn’t seem like fun. Squeezed
between floors of insurance brokers, each programmer worked in a separate quiet office
under bright fluorescent lights. There was no music, no revelry, no game playing.
Life at Softdisk had become something of a pressure cooker, with several programs
to get out the door every month.
Romero introduced himself to a group of programmers. They asked whether Big Al had
offered him a place to rent. When Romero said yes, they snickered. “Don’t do it,”
one of the guys said. He told Romero how when he got hired he took Al up on the offer,
only to find the apartment in a desperate state of squalor—a wooden shack in a bad
part of town. When the guy lay on the couch, he saw a long worm poke its head up out
of a patch of dirt on the floor.
But nothing could get Romero down. He was back on track. The sun was shining. He had
a job making games. His wife, Kelly, and toddlers, Michael and Steven, would be happy
in the new environment. Now they could have a fresh start. He called and told Kelly
to pack her bags; they were moving to Shreveport.
Romero and Lane
spent their first weeks living out their dream, working on games in the Special Projects
division. Romero had another agenda too: to pull himself away from the Apple II and
convert to the PC. Early on he told Al that he thought the Apple II was on the way
out, especially because of the rise of clones of the IBM PC.
By refusing to incorporate
the new IBM software standard, Apple was rapidly diminishing as the personal computer
of choice. What Romero didn’t tell Al was that he felt like he was missing the boat.
His unbridled devotion to the Apple II, he thought, had put him about a year behind
the curve. If he was going to be a Future Rich Person and Ace Programmer, he was going
to have to master the PC before it was too late.
“You can’t keep programming into the future on the same machines,” Romero told Al.
“I want you to know that I do not know the PC but I’ll learn it really fast.”
“That’s fine by me,” Al said. “Do whatever you want.”
What Romero wanted to do was learn a hot new programming language called C. But he
was told he couldn’t pursue it because the other programmers in the department didn’t
know it. Romero felt limited by the others’ lack of skills. Instead, while polishing
his game Zappa Roids, he hit the books, consuming everything he could about the PC
programming languages Pascal and 8086 assembly. He soon knew enough to port one of
his old Apple II games called Pyramids of Egypt to the PC. Within the first month,
he had published something on Softdisk’s main PC software product, the Big Blue Disk.
The problem was that his work on the Big Blue Disk started going
too
well. The PC department, overtaxed and unenergetic, started to rely more and more
heavily on Romero’s skills. By the end of his first month, he was spending more time
rewriting other people’s PC programs than working on his own games. Before he knew
it, the Special Projects division was kaput.
Al needed Romero instead to work on utility programs on the PC disk. Though Lane had
the option to join Romero at Softdisk, he stuck with the Apple II division. It was
the first sign, Romero thought, that his friend didn’t share his vision of the future,
the sense of opportunity that awaited in PC, not Apple, games. Since Romero still
wanted to learn the PC, he agreed to join that team for the time being. But, he told
Al, he wanted to make games when the time was right.
That time began to feel like it was never going to come. Romero grew unhappy. He spent
nearly a year working on PC utilities programs. He did manage to refine his skills
on the PC by porting more of his old Apple II games over to this platform. But PCs
were still largely thought of as having only business applications. After all, they
displayed just a handful of colors and squeaked out sounds through tiny, tinny speakers.
Romero was nowhere near making games full-time.
To make matters worse, Romero’s home life was bearing down. In order to save money,
he moved his wife and kids into a house with Lane and Jay in nearby Haughton, Louisiana.
It was tense, with the kids running around and Romero’s wife growing frustrated by
his long hours and her lack of a social life. He would try to assure her, but she
would just sit on the couch and mope. She was starting to lose hope that anything
would become more important to him than his games.
The bad vibes didn’t let up at work either. Romero’s initial impression of the beaten-down
Softdisk crew only turned worse. Al was feeling the pains of running an increasingly
big business and, to keep things in order, began to crack down. Romero and Lane were
reprimanded for turning off the fluorescent lights in their office, a move they pulled
because they hated the glare on their machines. Romero was also chastised for playing
his music too loud. Grudgingly, he wore headphones.
The employees were getting on his nerves too. No one seemed to be motivated. A narcoleptic
technical support worker kept falling asleep on the job—even while being asked a question.
Romero got in the habit of cranking up the heavy metal music in his office just to
wake the guy up. Then there was Mountain Man, the guy running the Apple II department.
He had been a buttoned-down engineer at Hewlett-Packard when one day he had something
of a breakdown and went off to live in the mountains for a year. He came back in a
cut-off denim jacket with a long, scraggly beard and took over the Apple II department
at Softdisk. But his Zen-like philosophy of life didn’t do much for the growth of
the department, Romero thought.