Business coach Terry Kim haspostedan extended thread highlighting the achievements of John Carmack. Kim explained how Carmack single-handedly and permanently changed the scope of both gaming and aerospace by coding the original id Tech engine forDoomover 28 hours, creating a modular approach to building games (and later rockets) that forever changed the two disparate industries.
As Kim spins it in the full thread, which includes some video excerpts from Carmack interviews throughout the years, “This is the power of true innovation: It’s not just about solving the problem in front of you. It’s about developing principles that can transform entire industries. […] Greatness requires obsession. When Carmack coded for 28 hours straight, he wasn’t just meeting a deadline. He was pushing the boundaries of what is possible.”
In 1991, one man coded for 28 hours straight without sleep.What he created transformed both gaming and aerospace engineering.The story of DOOM is wilder than you think.Here’s how one coding marathon changed technology forever: pic.twitter.com/fhdgZ13oFyJanuary 21, 2025
But let’s look at this critically — is John Carmack really that much of a pioneer? Well… yes. Even if he’d stopped at making the id Tech 1 engine that shaped Doom and a legacy of several other engines and series that would spawn from id Tech (including GoldSrc/Source fromValveand its games), John Carmack’s place as an industry pioneer would long be solidified. His later work with Oculus VR and Armadillo Aerospace is really just a more modern cherry on top of these all-time great achievements.
Additionally, let’s not forget the output of id Software prior toDoom.Doomand the eventual full-3D-logicQuakewouldn’t exist at all withoutWolfenstein 3D, which runs on what some people call “id Tech 0” and came out years ahead ofDoom. This 3D gameplay engine came to beafterid Tech’s creation ofCommander Keen, and has similar (but less visible) restrictions asDoom, where gameplay can only be calculated on a 2D plane (so rooms layered over each other, aiming up/down, etc are impossible).
What Terry Kim, fortunately, didn’t skim over was Carmack’s time with Softdisk, where they developedDangerous Dave, the first major series of side-scrolling platforming games made for PC rather than console. Of course, there were still limitations — namely per-screen challenges rather than seamless side-scrolling. During this time, Softdisk also developed and pitched aSuper Mario Bros. 3port to Nintendo, based on their progress in making a proper side-scrolling game engine for PC. This work was later used for id Tech’sCommander Keen, whose success would fund all of id Tech’s future advancements for both themselves and the industry at large.
Silly example: but did you know that among dozens of other games,titles as recent asHalf-Life: Alyxare still using code derived from id Tech? Granted, it’sQuake-era id Tech 2, but we don’t have that without Carmack, John Romero, and the rest at id Tech, either.
Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.
