Masters Of Doom: How Two Guys Created An Empire And Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner

Author:David Kushner
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-03-05T05:00:00+00:00

Another wrote a poem called “The Night Before Doom”: “ ‘Twas the night before Doom, / and all through the house, / I had set up my multi-playing networks, / each with a mouse. / The networks were strung, / with extra special care / in hopes that Doom, / soon would be there.” The publisher of a computer magazine had a darker vision he printed in an editorial called “A Parents Nightmare Before Christmas”: “By the time your kids are tucked in and dreaming of sugar plums, they may have seen the latest in sensational computer games… Doom.”

On Friday, December 10, it was finally Doom time. After working for thirty straight hours testing the game for bugs, id was ready to upload the game to the Internet. A sympathetic computer administrator at the University at Wisconsin, Parkside, named David Datta volunteered to let id upload the Doom shareware to a file transfer site he maintained on the school’s network. It was a good deal. The university, like most, had high-speed bandwidth for the time, which meant it could accommodate more users. The plan was that id would upload the shareware on cue, then the gamers could download it and transfer it around the world. So much for high-priced distribution. The gamers, would do all the work for id themselves. Jay had announced the day before in the chat rooms that Doom would be available at the stroke of midnight on December 10.

As the midnight hour approached, the id guys gathered around Jay’s computer. The office was littered with the debris of Doom’s creation. Adrian and Kevin’s clay models sat on the shelves. Heaps of broken chairs and keyboards were strewn on the floor. A busted garbage can crumpled in the corner. The taped outline of Dave Taylor’s body collected dust bunnies on the floor. Jay had the Doom file ready to go.

Online, the Wisconsin file transfer protocol (FTP) site teemed with gamers. Though there was no way for them to communicate through a discussion board or chat room, they had ingeniously found another way to talk. The system had a means that allowed a person to create and name a file that would join another list of files on screen. Someone got the bright idea to talk simply by creating a file and assigning a name like “WHEN IS DOOM” or “WE ARE WAITING.” Hundreds more waited in a special channel of Internet Relay Chat (through which people could have real-time discussions in text), where Jay was dropping clues about Doom’s coming arrival.

Finally, the clock struck midnight. They would have to wait no more. Jay hit the button to upload it to the world. Everyone in the office cheered. But Jay was silent. He sat wrinkling his forehead and tapping his keyboard. There was a problem. The University of Wisconsin FTP site could accommodate only 125 people at any given moment, Apparently, 125 gamers were waiting online. Id couldn’t get on.

Jay phoned David Datta in Wisconsin and hatched a plan.

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