The company owes much of its succe to advances made by John Carmack, its 31-year-old lead programmer and cofounder who has been programming games since he was a teenager.
Back in the late 1980s, the electronic gaming industry was dominated by dedicated video game consoles. Most game software was distributed in cartridges, which slotted into the consoles, and as a consequence, writing games required expensive development systems and corporate backing.
The only alternative was home computer game programming, an underworld in which amateurs could develop and distribute software. Writing games for the low-powered machines required only programming skill and a love of gaming. Spectrum bekeek de geschiedenis van id software. Een zeer intere ant verhaal waarin we uitgebreid kunnen lezen hoe het bedrijf is opgericht, wat de eerste games waren en welke richting id software nu gaat.