Zork
Infocom (1980)
The first Zork text adventure was released 38 years ago this month. Its origin is too long long and complicated to summarize here, but Retronauts recorded an excellent podcast about it a few years ago that I highly recommend. After you've listened to it, head over to ZorkOnline.net where you can play the original Zork trilogy, in addition to many other games of the genre.
