Hello everyone And welcome to the switch statement podcast It's a podcast for investigations into miscellaneous tech topics
Today, we're starting a new series on the book Masters of Doom. It's about John Carmack and John Romero and their adventures in creating some of the most iconic video games of all time.
Matt:Hey, John, how are you doing?
Jon:Hey Matt, I'm doing? really good. How are you?
Matt:I am doing. You're doing great. I'm feeling really good. For the first time in a long time.
Jon:Dude, that's, that's great to hear. Has anything changed or, I don't know, what's going on?
Matt:Well, uh, I had, uh, I had, uh, had a rough string there. I, I sprained my ankle. I got COVID. So I felt like I was kind of a. In the, uh, Alone in the pits for a bit, but back, back in business and I'm ready to be an ACE programmer.
Jon:Yes, Like John Romero.
Matt:Like John Romero.
Jon:Yeah, we are starting a new book,
Matt:Yeah, a new book.
Jon:Now, I got a question for you because I've always thought this book was like, You know, a quote unquote like seminal work in software, but I think I have like a very biased perspective or not biased but Like just Skewed
Matt:Like rose colored or yeah, maybe skewed.
Jon:Skewed I think is a good word for it because like my childhood was all about the Doom Series and like my friends and I would talk about Carmack and Romero You know as though they were these like gods and I'm just wondering what your perspective is because I'm I'm a little
Matt:we say, did we say the name of the book? I, maybe I wasn't.
Jon:I don't think I did, I don't think I did.
Matt:so yeah, we're reading masters of doom. Uh, and yeah, I. I'm a little younger than you. I have never read this book and I. Doom was a little bit before my time. I really, my first real game console that I felt like I owned was the PS two. I mean, we had a super Nintendo, but. It was almost more my dad's video game console than ours. And we would like watch it and play it basically.
Jon:Man, that is wild, because, you know, I'm not like that much older than you are, but. we had an Atari. I think that's more a testament to like, how quickly technology moves, you know, than our age gap. Also, I did have a brother who was like, almost five years older than me, so I think like, you know, the Atari was kind of his. But anyway, it's just crazy to think about.
Matt:Right. But, sorry. You asked me, did you ask me a question or did you,
Jon:Oh, yeah, yeah, I was curious, does this book strike you as part of the annals of, important works in software engineering or just about software?
Matt:This is, this book was already on my radar. I think it's the kind of book that any programmer who is aware of programming literature would be aware of.
Jon:Okay, okay, good. Because that's sort of my conception of it.
Matt:It didn't immediately strike me. And I had this in my notes that this book compared to everything we've read up until now. Is way more narrative. And what I've come to understand is, or like if you extrapolate the direction that this podcast is going, we're going to be reading like 50 shades of gray, I think like, pretty soon it's like we started with this like super. Dense technical. It was almost a textbook, I would say. And like the trajectory has just been like towards like a dime store novel, basically.
Jon:We even tried a white paper, which crashed and burned.
Matt:Well, I mean, we were fighting the momentum, so we just quickly decided we had to go back to Find our real life place, which is these kinds of more softer books. I think.
Jon:Yeah. Which, I mean, and this book, I think part of it is like this book is written by an actual author. I think David Kushner, he's not like an expert in the industry. Although, I don't know, I need to look him up and make sure I'm not just talking out of my butt here. But I think he was just someone who was interested in this, but also a very good writer. And that's probably partially why. I also just think it's an interesting story, the subtitle of the book is How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. And the two guys, who, you know, we'll be talking about a lot over the next few weeks, John Romero and John Carmack, Not only did they accomplish amazing things in this industry, but they're also just interesting. They kind of have an interesting history. They were active during a very interesting time in software where there was a lot of innovation happening. They were at the forefront of all of that. Their games are known to be Like, at the time, they were the most state of the art pieces of software available. Besides maybe whatever launched the spaceships
Matt:right. I mean, There's a point in the book where John Romero. So, um, this is, this is chapter one, which is kind of. John Ramirez origin story, basically. Uh, and there's this a little anecdote where he goes into the computer store and he enters in a couple of commands and he gets this game to go into like double.
Jon:Yeah, double res,
Matt:Like double Rez mode and like, which is something where the person working at the computer store is like, I don't know what you just did, but it looks better than the professional software. And. It's crazy because just to imagine, if you're going, you go into an apple store and you could do something you could enter in this. Quick command that like pulls up some graphical thing that like amazes the staff there. It's of course not. It's like. It's every everything's so locked down and I mean, this is kind of a. This gets into a commentary on how unapproachable software is today, I think. But anyway, but like exactly to your point, you know, getting back to your point. They were at the cut, like he was. Uh, superstar. He really was. You know, at least in this chapter. And I think both of them are.
Jon:yeah, yeah, no, very similar to, like we, we hear stories about like Bill Gates or whatever, how he was like hanging out, near these large computers in California and when the professors would go home, he would like go into the lab and be there all night, like plugging away, like, so was John Romero and so was John Carmack, like. So they're, they're kind of all part of the same cadre of like brilliant programmers who were wizards with computers.
Matt:Well, this is interesting. I actually, this is a good segue I had in my notes There was actually a really important way that John Romero was different than bill gates, which was that he didn't come from. He didn't come from like a great, super. Affluent background. He had, he had a broken home and they. Uh, an abusive stepfather basically. And no, I mean, not basically like just he, you know, no qualifications. He had an abusive stepfather and. It just. You know, there's these peoples who are people who are want to say, like bill gates, like he wasn't a genius. He was just at the right place at the right time. But then I think John Romero is kind of a counter to that idea because, I mean, yes, he had access to some university, but he was getting in through the back door or basically, you know what I mean? So
Jon:Yeah,
Matt:That kind of flies in the face of that idea where it's like, no, sometimes you have someone who is just independently motivated and they're going to find those resources. You know, if they exist.
Jon:totally. Yeah. No, that's actually, I'm glad you brought that up. Cause that's a major difference between, a lot of those stories about the heroes of computing. And actually I want to touch on Romero's upbringing just briefly. Like, I don't think our podcast is. It's good at social commentary or anything, but part of what's interesting about this book to me is I grew up during this era. Like I was very aware of John Romero. I used to talk about him all the time with my friends. He was kind of a hero of ours. And I remember his comic books. Like they discussed one of his comic books, Uh, in the first chapter. I think it was called Chewy. And it was about a dog who, like, the owner, like, threw a ball at the dog's head and, like, blew his head up. And I remember looking at those comics and, seeing how violent they were. And just not... And also being vaguely aware of John Carmack's, troubles in his upbringing. And just, not being... not reacting to it. You know? Because at the time, when I was a kid, like, it just didn't strike me as... As weird or anything. But now reading this chapter again, maybe 15 years after I read this book for the first time, he did have a rough childhood. Like his stepfather, wasn't very supportive, was abusive. I mean, just straight up abusive. Like, there's really no two ways about it. And I think it's just interesting how that's changed over the years, both my perception of it, but also I think, sort of, society's perception of that type of upbringing.
Matt:Yeah. Um, I mean, he just to give a little color to like that abuse and I mean, we don't need to get like, into the well. Maybe this is too. Too much information, but he talks about how John is playing at a console. Someone grabs him by the shoulder. He thinks it's one of his friends, it's a stepfather. And he literally like just hits him straight in the face. Like, no, no, like. Words exchange like, Nope, you weren't supposed to be here. So I'm going to. Assault you, you know what I mean? So, um, and I think, you know, I do think attitudes about that are changing at any sort of like corporal punishment. That's becoming very taboo and I think. The general understanding is it's just, it's not that effective. You know, as, as a source of, you know, just as a way to kind of rare your children,
Jon:Right.
Matt:I don't know. I, I, that if, if, if I'm not well equipped to talk about, you know, nineties video games, I've even. More unwell, equipped to talk about how to raise a child, but.
Jon:yeah, well, I mean, one last thing on this topic, cause I agree, neither of us are qualified to talk about this stuff, but it does, like when I was initially learning about John Romero when I was a kid. I never thought about the connection of the content he was producing, which was always kind of hyper violent in a way, almost in a funny way. Like I think he had a, he had a very like ironic take on violence, or at least like a humorous take. I never made the connection between his upbringing and like his artistic output. And I think that's something that sort of struck me, at least in this first chapter. We'll see how the book progresses and where that goes, but. Um, just kind of food for thought, I guess.
Matt:So you. I almost think that Y or his artistic. Approach or tone or subject matter. Was. Governed by a normalization of violence. That he had kind of in his. In his own home.
Jon:Yeah, I mean, maybe I'm, maybe I am extrapolating a little bit, but that was part of my take on this first chapter. Is like, I think Romero, like any great artist, is working with his own experiences and, Um, maybe not directly like repeat or, you know, regurgitating his experiences onto the page in the form of artwork, but taking his experiences and turning them into great art. And yeah, it's just something to think about, like his, his young experience was evidently very violent and his games were hyper violent, you know, almost to the point of absurdity. And they're great. Like I love his, his games, but they are just incredibly, incredibly violent.
Matt:Now. One thing I wanted to bring up, like you even called this out, I think in, in, in the podcast. But if not, Romero is known as the artist, you know, the designer.
Jon:Yeah, and this is another interesting thing that hopefully we can talk about as we read this book. I definitely had a perception as a kid that Romero was an artist and designer. And he was primarily responsible for driving the artistic vision of the games. Whereas John Carmack was like the hyper genius programmer. And I, I recall reading this book, and before I read this book for the first time, maybe 15 years ago, I didn't even know that Romero was a programmer. That's how absurd, absurdly slanted my like initial perception of Romero was. Um, so, anyway, but yeah, that was my perception growing up, was Romero was more of this, you know, uh, visionary artist. Which I think he is, but I think he's many things. I think he's also an amazing programmer.
Matt:That really surprised me. Like, yeah, he, I mean, he, he's not just. Like, yeah, you, you imagine you have this super simplified story in your head where it's like super nerdy programmer with no artistic abilities and then artists with no. Tech abilities. Get together and create awesome work. But it's like, no, it's like Romero was completely, was basically a genius programmer in his own. Right.
Jon:Yes.
Matt:is even more like impressive that, that, like, because I feel like it's very rare that you would get a programmer who is also a very talented artist.
Jon:Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. No, and you'll see, that's one of the things I love about this book, is it really redefined like who all these people were. Another hero of mine when I was a kid was American McGee, which is kind of a weird name, but he was like a famous, famous level designer. This is another weird thing is all these guys used to be like almost pop stars, at least in the circles that I sort of hung out with. But. But anyway, American McGee was another one who I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure he's also like an amazing programmer. And I remember reading this book for the first time and just being kind of bowled over by that. And maybe I'm, maybe I'm making this up. I mean, we'll get to this eventually, but this book caused me to redefine who a lot of these people are. And that's one interesting thing about it.
Matt:Yeah, for sure. One of the things that comes out in this book is like, His ego, like, I'm sure we're going to refine our understanding of John Romero. And this is just the very. Preliminary taste, but, um, he, you know, he writes in to one of these periodicals and is basically like, uh, Uh, when I win the programming competition this week, like, could you just give me$500 instead of a$500 prize? Like that would be great. Because I am going to win.
Jon:Yeah.
Matt:ACE program or John Romero. That's how he signed it. That's the, that was kind of the, the, uh, reference in the intro if you're not familiar, but, um,
Jon:Oh yeah. Now that, that is definitely part of his, legend. Is that he was just insanely high on himself. Um, I'm sure we'll get to this event as well, but. there was sort of a breakup. Well, maybe I, maybe I don't want to talk about this yet,
Matt:Well, I dunno, spoiler alert. I wasn't there and I didn't experience it when there was like the golden era of it. And then the breakup, like, so this is all kind of new to me. I mean, and they, they tease it in the, they tease it in the book itself. There's an, there's an intro, which references that they be count, you became, you know, mortal enemies or whatever it was. But, um, but what we're going to say.
Jon:Yeah, so, like, I remember, because this happened live when I was a kid, it was like the mid 90s, and I remember this breakup happening, I remember Romero being very public about his, like, next project and how he kept saying, oh, now that I'm no longer being, like, held down by id or whatever, like, I'm gonna release this insane game, I think it was called Daikatana, and um, you know, I don't want to go into too much detail about Daikatana, I'm sure we'll talk about it again, but it sort of was a... Flop. You know, it came out and basically just got crushed by critics, and it wasn't that highly regarded. I think it's gotten a little bit of a cult following over the years, but, uh, it's just interesting how that pompousness has sort of always been a part of the legend of John Romero.
Matt:Yeah. Um, well, actually, I mean, This is a good, maybe a good point to talk about. So his company, so after He founded a company called ion storm.
Jon:Ah,
Matt:now do you know. What the one major claim to fame, you know, one major critical and. Financial success of ion storm. As a developer, as a game developer.
Jon:Oh man, this is an amazing trivia question.
Matt:Because it's a game. You've definitely got to know.
Jon:I'm trying to think, like, I don't think he had anything to do with Duke Nukem. I don't know. I have no idea. It wasn't Daikatana, I'll tell you that much.
Matt:Uh, day use X. They were the developer for days X. And so this was. it sounds like Tana never achieved the greatness that, uh, Romero hoped it would, but I mean, you go, you start to. Software development companies. And then one of them is aid. And the other one develops day use acts, which is still a franchise that is around today. And like, has a mythical reputation almost.
Jon:Revolutionary game. Yeah, I mean, like, the precursor to games like 2077 Cyberpunk. Is that what that game's called?
Matt:Yeah, I think it's cyberpunk 20, 77. Um,
Jon:Yeah, but uh, there's no Cyberpunk 2077 without Deus Ex.
Matt:Exactly. Um, But, yeah, so I did, uh, I did find that, find that interesting.
Jon:while we're talking about like old games, uh, he mentions a couple things that sort of inspired him, or just things that had happened as precursors to John Romero sort of coming up in the computer world. One of them was this game Tennis for Two. Which is sort of the precursor to Pong. And this is, like a lot of people think of Pong as like the first game ever made or whatever. Tennis for Two was basically Pong. And it. worked on an oscilloscope of all things. Which is like, I don't even really know what an oscilloscope is. I don't know, I don't know if you can give an explanation as to what one is. But it's basically a way that you can like... Visualize things. And this Tennis for Two game was something very, very similar to Pong, but came way before Pong and worked on an oscilloscope.
Matt:Well, I mean, in a cell scope I had. Like these old aScopes. Uh, you would have a, I mean, it. I think it was kind of a precursor to a standard Katherine Ray. Uh, technology. And if you're not familiar, like the way that that works is you would just have this beam that's scanning over. This, uh, screen that glow is when it hits it. Right? So same exact technology, except the beam, the location of the beam was a function of the voltage on a pan or something. Right. So it would go up and down if you had a particular voltage on a pin, so you would be using it to, you would just draw the single line across the screen and it would wiggle up and down. Um, and so some, I don't know, do you know who, who did tennis for two? Who programmed tennis for two?
Jon:I want to say Higginbottom,
Matt:Oh, wait, is that? Yeah, you that's what you said. That's what you said. Hey, Higginbotham
Jon:Yeah, I don't think I said it in the podcast, but I think it was Higginbottom. Yeah. Which I don't know how to say that.
Matt:so you could just envision having a circuit that controls the position of this beam so that you can make this thing bounce back and forth in response to, to input. So that's kind of like, But, but it had a circular display, like I've seen the aScope and so it was just a circle. And so it's just amazing to imagine. Someone programming on, on that, but, you know, Hackers find a way.
Jon:Yeah, yeah, no, I guess a couple other interesting things about Romero coming up. One is there was a massive massive heyday of Arcades which like I'm sure a lot of people are aware of but if you're a young person today You know, you've probably only seen this in movies and read about it in books or whatever, but back in the day, people used to go to arcades and play these massive, like, pinball machines and, you know, massive games or whatever. In Romero's day, that was a 5 billion industry. They mention this in the book. Huge industry. I mean, like, I did not realize it was that big, and That's 5 billion.
Matt:Were you, uh, did you go to the arcades? Were you in arcade gamer?
Jon:Not really, I think I missed that by a couple years. Um, I mean, I went to like Dave and Buster's and stuff, but I would say that's more part of like the modern era of arcade gaming. Um, but, But yeah, it's just, so that was a big part of Romero's upbringing. I mean, literally the first scene in the book is like him, you know, escaping his house and running to an arcade and that his dad beating him up like you were talking about.
Matt:That's just how, how, like the, you know, that's how video gaming started that. And I like that. It's just like, everyone's first taste. And then, you know, it's hard, it's hard to imagine now with. KA home console is being so. Uh, you know, ubiquitous, but. You know, back in the day you did. The computers were so expensive. That no one could afford to do anything like that in their home. So that's, that's how that was the, the surface. And so then you got all these people who were like, all right, how do I. You know, how do I make this at home? And, and then when the personal computer came around, then there's like, yes, I can do it myself now.
Jon:Yes. And speaking of the personal computer, he mentions one other guy that I, that I put in my notes, Richard Garriott,
Matt:Hm.
Jon:AKA Lord British, who, you know, this, this dude, I I've probably played through, I want to say like 10 of the Ultima games. So Lord British, AKA Richard Garriott was sort of the creator of the Ultima series. He was a very, very talented programmer, talented designer, and created this, this series of games called Ultima that I'm not sure if people are aware of today. Um, but it sort of culminated into like Ultima Online, which was a huge sensation that I played probably hundreds of hours of Ultima Online. I know my brother was also really into it. Um, but yeah, this guy was evidently a hero of Romero's and also a hero of mine. So, just wanted to mention Richard Garriott.
Matt:Yeah. The one thing that sticks out in my mind from the book is like, the graphics were a Bismal, Bismal, but it didn't matter because you know it, what mattered was you had this like agency and you, you were able to put yourself into this, like moving square on the screen because you can control it.
Jon:Yeah. The graphics were abysmal, like you're saying, but at the same time, I think if you're an aspiring game designer, you should take some time to look at how these games played, because one of the really interesting things about these early games were designing with constraints. Like these. Uh, you know, a person like Richard Garriott or even, uh, John Romero, to a large extent, like they were designing these games under extreme, resource limitations, and they were forced to make certain decisions, but they were also trying to optimize the user experience. So there's a very interesting, you know, set of trade offs for like, you know, maximizing that user experience while using as little resources as possible, and there's a tremendous amount that can be learned from that. In terms of design, I think a lot of modern game design is just very fatty. Like, there's just a lot of, a lot of aspects of modern game design that could just be totally cut. And I think if people were more historians, you know, basically studied the history of game design, that they could produce more tight designs and better games, frankly. This is just my opinion, but...
Matt:It's funny because I think it, you kind of have a paradox of choice where when you aren't constrained. You're kind of like, what do I, what do I do? Like, I couldn't build anything. So. In a way. I have no idea what I should build, where it's like, all right, well, I have a block on the screen. Like there's only light so many things that I could possibly do with this, but.
Jon:Yeah. I think it's also, you know, modern day designers have a tendency to be, like, indulgent. Where, you know, you create a 13 second get on your horse animation. Where the gamer presses the get on horse button and has to wait until the avatar gets on the horse.
Matt:Dude at this point. That get on your horse. Animation is just like living rent-free in your head. It's just like playing in a loop. You're just like, I'm going to find. The gratuitous animator, who, who did this, who. Who knows it could be mocap, but anyway,
Jon:Yeah, I even have to find the actor, I gotta find the horse, put them all down.
Matt:hit list.
Jon:Yeah, just doom one them, just take them out.
Matt:I mean, that is pretty much what I had, for chapter one, looking forward to, uh, the rest of this book.
Jon:Yeah, no, I think this will be a fun book. Good choice.
Matt:All right. Yeah. Thanks. like, you alluded to feel like it's one of the, one of the great, like narrative. Uh, programming books.
Jon:Yeah.
Matt:All right. Well, I'll see you next time for chapter two.
Jon:See you next time.
Matt:All right.