John Carmichael's team at id Software switched Quake’s build environment in mid‑1996, moving from HP‑NeXT workstations to Intergraph machines running Windows NT. The change produced winquake.exe, glquake.exe and QuakeWorld binaries compiled with Visual C++ 4.x. A new guide walks developers through reproducing that 1997 workflow on modern hardware or virtual machines on a 21‑inch monitor.

The tutorial recommends three paths: hunting a rare Intergraph RealizM Dual, assembling a dual‑Pentium Pro rig, or using a late‑90s PC and Oracle VirtualBox. Installing Windows NT 4 takes about half an hour, then adding Visual C++ 6 (available via Internet Archive) restores the original IDE for proper SMP. After pulling the q1source.zip archive, users must apply Service Pack 5 and MDAC 2.5 before rebuilding.

When the build succeeds, copying the required DLLs (PmProXX.dll, WdirXX.dll) yields a runnable Quake executable, and the same process produces QuakeWorld with QSpy support. The exercise demonstrates how early IDEs offered breakpoints and stack traces despite lacking modern autocomplete, giving developers a tangible sense of 1996 software engineering. Recreating the environment proves both nostalgic and educational for retro development enthusiasts today.