It was most famously used by id Software's John Carmack in games such as Commander Keen to compensate for the poor graphics performance of PCs in the early 1990s.
[3] Adaptive tile refresh using hardware scrolling debuted in the unreleased prototype game Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement, implemented by Carmack.
This was developed within one week as a recreation of the first level of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. 3, intended as a realistic prototype of the adaptive tile refresh concept.
The team of future id Software employees, still working for Softdisk, then completed the replica of the entire game, which was pitched to Nintendo for licensing for the PC.
[4][5][1] The first release of Carmack's adaptive tile refresh came in id Software's first installment of the Commander Keen game series, Marooned on Mars.