The story of tracing the magic number back is really fun and it's interesting to see how the trade of computer graphics programming was passed down from one company to another. I don't think it's legendary status was at all diminished when it turns out not to have been Carmack's invention.
https://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/
https://web.archive.org/web/20120920120948/http://blog.quent...