An archive project.
Why this archive exists, how it is made, and what it does not claim to be.
Why
Carmack and Romero are the reason a lot of us went into computing at all. This archive comes out of that debt. It gathers in one place what is usually scattered across an encyclopedia, code repositories, filmed interviews and community archives.
How
Every claim rests on a source you can check, listed on the Sources page. Where sources disagree, the archive says so rather than picking a winner. Where a fact cannot be verified, it is not published.
First-hand sources come first: the code id Software released, the .plan files Carmack kept, his filmed interviews, his statements on stage. Encyclopedic summaries are a starting point, not evidence.
The visuals follow the same rule. No publisher box art is reproduced: the ludography shows no cover art at all, and the few photographs come from freely licensed collections, credited to their authors.
What this site is not
It is not an official site. This is an independent, non-commercial project with no affiliation to John Carmack, id Software, ZeniMax, Meta/Oculus or Keen Technologies. Trademarks and titles are cited for identification only.
Nor is it an authorized biography. John Carmack is alive: the archive sticks to public, documented facts and leaves aside what belongs to the private lives of third parties.
Corrections
Spotted an error, a missing source, a dead link? Reports are welcome and acted on. An archive that refuses correction is not an archive.