A True 3D Vision
The arrest of the entire Busan Group owner family for environmental law violations sent shockwaves through Korea. The uproar was so intense that it even seemed to slightly overshadow the upcoming summit between President Gorbachev and President Roh on Jeju Island. The judiciary, which had always treated chaebols with kid gloves no matter the crime, had suddenly reversed course, leaving the media in a frenzy and ordinary viewers wondering what hidden motives lay behind the shift.
Those in the upper echelons who understood how the world really worked began seeking out Yoo Jae-won after his conversation with Chairman Jeon Myeong-heon. But Jae-won had taken his home phone off the hook for the time being and had already instructed Choi Kang-wook to block all unnecessary calls.
Amid the chaos, Park Sang-kwon carried out his role to perfection. Taking advantage of the turmoil at Busan Group, he swept up shares of Busan Brewery and announced himself as the largest shareholder. He then called for an emergency shareholders' meeting to dismiss the current president over the Nakdong River phenol contamination incident and appoint a new one.
The Busan Brewery management dismissed the idea as absurd. The Busan Group owner family, well aware that Park Sang-kwon was an illegitimate son, opposed it outright. The strongest resistance came from the current president, Park Sang-seok. Officially the third son—and fourth if Park Sang-kwon was included—he had been celebrating his turn at the top after his older brothers were all arrested, only to be thrown into panic by Park Sang-kwon's sudden appearance.
His relief did not last long. A summons for questioning from the prosecution's special investigation unit arrived. To Park Sang-seok, who had plenty to hide, it felt as though Park Sang-kwon was pulling the prosecution's strings. Moreover, the minority shareholders had all entrusted their voting rights to President Park Sang-kwon. Word had quietly spread through brokerage offices that he had secured investment from Yoo Jae-won.
At the emergency shareholders' meeting that followed, the entire existing management was replaced. Park Sang-kwon ran unopposed for the new president position and was elected with overwhelming support. In his acceptance speech, he declared his intention to dismantle the company's entrenched bad practices, refocus on the core brewing business, and erase the stain on Busan Brewery's reputation. He also promised a massive investment to import European technology and equipment for the beer production lines, elevating Korean beer quality to European standards.
At the same time, attention turned once again to Yoo Jae-won, widely believed to be the force behind the events. Many wondered why he had targeted the Busan Group owner family. Not only ordinary citizens but even other chaebols were curious. As a result, the media—essentially the mouthpieces of the chaebols—began knocking on ID Group's doors. Having learned their lesson from a previous painful encounter, they did not storm all the way to Deokjin-ri. Instead, they cornered Choi Kang-wook, the chief of staff at the Seoul branch, and bombarded him with questions.
“The notion that Chairman Yoo Jae-won harbors personal grudges against the Busan Group owners is an overreach,” Choi Kang-wook stated. “He merely advised the President that enforcing the law and principles is the only reliable way to prevent recurrence.”
His answers were dry and principled. Some ordinary citizens nodded in agreement, but not a single chaebol took them at face value.
Meanwhile, Yoo Jae-won—the man who had thrown the nation into turmoil with a single conversation with the President—spent his days in his office as usual. Upon arriving at work, he handled reports from American business sites before immediately diving into programming work for the completion of Android 1.0, while also attending to Korean matters in between, including the Busan Group affair and the high school equivalency exam.
With all the bothersome tasks cleared away, by early May Jae-won's programming efficiency had reached a level comparable to when he had built the Keyboard Warrior alone.
On the morning of May 7th, he began his day as usual. But the moment he logged into ID Talk for work, a conversation request arrived—from John Carmack of ID Software.
“I want to make a proper 3D FPS this time.”
A few days earlier, when Jae-won had asked what he wanted to create next, John Carmack had said he was still thinking. Today he had finally made up his mind, and his answer differed from Jae-won's expectations. Jae-won had assumed he would mention Doom 2, but instead Carmack spoke of the game's format rather than the title.
A proper 3D FPS! Jae-won welcomed the idea wholeheartedly. With everything—company, family, even personal relationships—going smoothly, he felt almost overwhelmed by happiness. Yet something was still missing. Lately, the greatest thirst he felt was the lack of anything truly enjoyable.
Even television, which had once seemed endlessly fresh, now felt dull. The picture quality was poor, and the variety shows and comedies were too clichéd to hold his interest. Games were no better. Doom had become a global phenomenon, with sales already surpassing two million copies worldwide and closing in on three million. When the settlement funds arrived, bonuses were paid out—enough to buy a Ferrari for John Carmack and the core developers, and Impalas for the new hires—yet even after distributing the windfall, substantial capital remained. It was an enormous success, but to Jae-won it brought little novelty. After clearing the single-player campaign and playing a dozen or so multiplayer matches, his curiosity had abruptly vanished. His so-called “game immunity” had returned.
To cure it, virtual reality games were still out of reach, but at the very least he needed a game with a vast open world rendered in 3D. Fortunately, John Carmack showed no signs of falling into mannerism and continued to burn with passion for greater progress.
“You mean you want to make Doom 2 in perfect 3D?” Jae-won typed, his words carefully stripped of emotion despite his excitement.
“I haven't decided whether it will be Doom 2 or another title,” Carmack replied. “But whatever it is, I want to make something truly proper.”
He had clearly done a great deal of thinking while developing Doom. Compared to Wolfenstein, Doom represented a massive leap forward. It felt far more three-dimensional, incorporated height differences, featured vastly improved graphics, and had a much more refined multiplayer system. These elements had propelled Doom to worldwide fame—so much so that people were buying new computers and signing up for PC communications or the internet just to play it.
Yet when asked if it was perfect 3D, the answer was no. Not a single polygon—the very foundation of 3D—had been used. It was merely a clever manipulation of flat image files to create the illusion of three dimensions.
“Hmm. Then we'd have to handle polygons,” Jae-won wrote. “Do current computers even allow that?”
“That's the problem,” Carmack answered. “I tested it on the latest 486 DX2-66. It can process about fifteen thousand polygons per second. That's the limit for pure polygon processing without textures. Fifteen thousand polygons? That number was so pitifully small that Jae-won found himself at a loss for words. In the early twenty-first century, 3D accelerator cards could process hundreds of millions of polygons per second and render billions of pixels. But here, the critical factor was time. To achieve smooth motion in computer graphics, thirty frames per second were required. That meant only five hundred polygons could be used per second. Could five hundred polygons even form a single character?
“So I've been thinking,” Carmack continued. “If there were a separate hardware device to handle polygon and texture processing, development would become much easier.”
A 3D accelerator card! John Carmack truly thought differently from others. When it became impossible to produce high-quality graphics with a single CPU even in the twenty-first century, the graphics card industry had created dedicated accelerator cards—the birth of the GPU. By dividing tasks between the CPU for general computation and the GPU for graphics-specific computation, dazzling 3D graphics had finally bloomed.
“Are you suggesting we make a GPU ourselves?” Jae-won asked.
“GPU? What's that?”
Ah, what a mistake. The concept of a GPU did not yet exist in this era, yet his fingers had moved on their own.
“What you just described is a chip specialized for graphics processing. If we call it a Graphics Processing Unit, then GPU for short.”
“Oh! That's good. GPU. It feels like an appropriate name—clearly distinct from the CPU while conveying that it's dedicated to graphics.”
The quick-witted reply earned John Carmack's admiration, but Jae-won resolved to be more careful in the future.
“We wouldn't be developing it ourselves, of course,” Carmack added. “We don't have anyone in the company capable of designing graphics semiconductors. But we do have graphics card manufacturers working with us.”
“That's true,” Jae-won agreed, nodding again. The historical development of GPUs had indeed followed a path where hardware and software companies remained separate, while sharing a common library for graphics acceleration. Even if each manufacturer used its own development capabilities and technology, the shared library meant game developers could create titles without worrying about compatibility. Gamers could simply choose whichever product offered the best benchmark performance, color reproduction, convenience, and price.
“Fortunately, since the boss created Glide X, we hold the initiative for the next product development,” Carmack said. “If we add polygon and texture processing capabilities to Glide X and release it, graphics card manufacturers will develop new products accordingly.”
“Exactly right. Then let's include this in the upcoming Cupcake release as well!”
Once a standardized library was properly established, the market would form on its own. Demonstrating how the new technology should be used would be the icing on the cake. If John Carmack delivered a perfect 3D FPS as Doom's sequel, it would be the perfect showcase.
“Really? You're serious?” Carmack asked, surprised by Jae-won's ready agreement.
“The next operating system already has a solid foundation. Adding the features I mentioned shouldn't cause any delays, right?”
“Haha, that's something you and James should be worrying about, not me. Cupcake was designed modularly, so expansion poses no problem. Instead, the two of you will have to create a new 3D library for Glide X.”
James, whom they had recruited from Microsoft, was in charge of Glide X. Through microcode optimization, he had already significantly improved performance and was actively adding new features. The weekly reports Jae-won received showed substantial achievements, though nothing had been mentioned regarding 3D work.
“That's a relief,” Carmack replied. “To be honest, I hadn't reported it yet because I wasn't sure how the boss would react, but we've actually been working on the 3D library for several months now. I judged that we had enough results to report to you today.”
Jae-won could not help but smile. He had never seen such ideal colleagues.