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
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
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