Timeline.

Born on August 21 in Shawnee Mission, Kansas.

As a teenager, he programs on the Apple II, fascinated by games and graphics.

Joins Softdisk in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he meets John Romero, Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack.

Prototypes smooth PC scrolling (adaptive tile refresh); the team builds Commander Keen for Apogee.

Co-founds id Software with Romero, Hall and Adrian Carmack.

Wolfenstein 3D: textured ray casting popularizes the first-person shooter.

Doom: a BSP-based engine, network multiplayer, modding; a cultural and technical phenomenon.

Quake: the first true real-time 3D engine, network play and a thriving mod community.

Quake II (1997) then Quake III Arena (1999); the engines are progressively opened under the GPL.

Founds Armadillo Aerospace, a personal suborbital-rocketry venture.

Doom 3: real-time dynamic lighting and cast shadows (the technique known as “Carmack's Reverse”).

He proposes the idea behind Quake Live: Quake III Arena, free in the browser and funded by advertising. Announced as Quake Zero at QuakeCon 2007, renamed after a domain-name dispute. At QuakeCon 2009 he publicly acknowledges that the advertising model has not made the project profitable.

Rage and MegaTexture technology (id Tech 5); he keeps releasing the older engines as open source.

Becomes CTO of Oculus VR, a pioneer of consumer virtual-reality headsets.

Facebook acquires Oculus; Carmack shapes the software architecture of mobile VR (Gear VR, then Quest).

Shifts to a “Consulting CTO” role to focus more on artificial intelligence.

Leaves Meta/Oculus; launches Keen Technologies (keenagi.com), dedicated to artificial general intelligence (AGI): the “Keen AGI” project.

Inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.

Two Emmy Engineering Awards for his contributions to 3D engines and streaming.

Game Developers Conference Lifetime Achievement Award.

BAFTA Fellowship, the British Academy's highest honor.