The seminal idea for the underground world of my Cor Series goes back to1982 when a friend at college decided to buy an Apple computer so he sold me his Kaypro 2 - the world’s first “portable” computer, at least if you worked out at the gym. It weighed almost 30 lbs and was housed in a metal box about the size of a small car tire. I was proud of my Kaypro 2 and dutifully lugged it around the campus bragging about its incredible 64 kilobytes of RAM. For comparison, my current laptop has 16 gigabytes, the equivalent of a 250,000 Kaypro 2’s. After carrying the Kaypro around for a few weeks, my arms got tired and my friends grew weary of listening to me brag, so I decided the Kaypro deserved its own special “computing room” at home.

  At the time we rented a shack built in 1921 as a warehouse for sacks of flour. Adjacent to the living room was a small storage closet I converted into a study just large enough for a shelf and my chair.

  The Kaypro came with a shoe box of 5 ?” floppy drives. Flipping through the stack, I found one simply labeled “Adventure”. I clearly recall the night I loaded that disc into the floppy drive, dropped the latch into position and listened to the sound of it loading up, that loud clicking and grinding you swore would result in a square of frayed plastic when you later ejected the disk. A short time later (in 1982 computer terms, enough time to make a sandwich) the small CRT screen came to life and the green letters spread across the screen.

  YOU ARE STANDING AT THE END OF A ROAD BEFORE A SMALL BRICK BUILDING. AROUND YOU IS A FOREST. A SMALL STREAM FLOWS OUT OF THE BUILDING AND DOWN A GULLY. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS - DIRECT ME.

  At first, I just stared at the screen, wondering how it was even possible for someone to invite me into a computer world. Then, I began typing simple directions, go south, pick up, open door and before long I was drawn deep into a world that had been modeled on Mammoth Cavern in Kentucky where the creator of the game, William Crowther, had explored for many years. He had created the game for his kids, then put it out as free game on a precursor to the internet. A student at Stanford University, Don Woods, found the game on a school computer, contacted William and together they improved the game. The redesigned game went viral and brought the fledgling computer industry to its knees because the technicians who were supposed to be working on programming got caught up trying to solve the puzzles.

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  I was also sucked in and as I typed away in my tiny dark room, I was completely immersed in a the fantasy world. My heart beat faster as I was warned:

  IT IS NOW PITCH BLACK. IF YOU PROCEED YOU WILL LIKELY FALL INTO A PIT.

  Thankfully, I had enough sense to pick up a lamp that had been left on the cavern floor, so I quickly typed in: LIGHT LAMP. My lamp came on and I discovered I was standing:

  AT ONE END OF A VAST HALL STRETCHING FORWARD OUT OF SIGHT TO THE WEST. THE HALL IS FILLED WITH WISPS OF WHITE MIST SWAYING TO AND FRO ALMOST AS IF ALIVE. A COLD WIND BLOWS UP THE STAIRCASE.

  I kept typing and moving forward butmin my imagination, I was inside that hall, pushing through the fog and feeling the cold wind on my face. Moving forward I entered:

  A DEBRIS ROOM, FILLED WITH STUFF WASHED IN FROM THE SURFACE. A LOW WIDE PASSAGE WITH COBBLES BECOMES PLUGGED WITH MUD AND DEBRIS HERE, BUT AN AWKWARD CANYON LEADS UPWARD AND WEST. A NOTE ON THE WALL SAYS 'MAGIC WORD XYZZY'.

  The realistic descriptions of the cave had me so engrossed that when my wife opened the door behind me, I jumped back and fell out of the closet. She laughed and suggested that I shut down for the night and get some sleep. It was not the last time I would hear those words from her.

  Readers know all too well that text on a page is a powerful catalyst for the human imagination and that time can cease to exist. The difference with the game is that I was now fully inside the story, not sure of where it would go, unable to skip ahead to relieve the tension or avoid the decisions that would dictate the direction of the storyline.

  I am told that when the free online game came out, a good number of students in colleges, who only had access to a computer at school, failed to graduate as they were too engrossed solving the puzzles to get their assignments done on time. In my case the game sent me running to the college library to grab whatever books I could find on caves and caving. I was hooked on knowing as much as I could discover about the hidden world below our feet. That interest would eventually lead to the writing of my Cor Series. You can still play the game online at - )