I have played Zork more than any other video game in my life. At 5 years old, it was pretty much my first reading, and playing growing up taught me to read/spell. It was a huge part of my childhood, I know much of the text by heart. I have an original version from 1977 on my PC, and there is no "rubber mat". "There is a small mailbox here." That is the last sentence, before the first prompt. I've searched and searched online, and even places that claim they have the original source text, also include this "rubber mat" item. If it weren't for the version I have on my PC right this very moment, I might have believed all the Mandela effect malarkey were true. Can anyone tell me when/how/why this rubber mat appeared?

I don't remember ever seeing a rubber mat in the original zork, but zork has been revised to death, and turned from a text game to a 3d rendered video game. And various versions released by fans. So, at some point, someone decided they needed a mat. Is it really a problem?

It's a game intended for entertainment, I don't understand how any element of it could be a "problem"... just curious when/why it appeared. I've not played through this version, but I see in walkthroughs it's actually an item that is needed to be used later in the game, which suggests an entire puzzle has been added as well. Also, among all the "revised" versions, this one is universal. Search upon search clearly shows that this version containing the rubber mat is the one going down in history. I understand adding the information about using the trophy case and why a programmer would include that, there was no indication what the goal of the game even was in the original... but why a rubber mat!? I'm simply curious about it - is THAT a problem?

Could the rubber mat be the old rug?
I have a game book, (list of games, maps, and solutions) from Sept 1985 that does not list a mat, but there is a rug you need to move to get something... or maybe find a trap door...

I do have the original version running under CP/M on a 5.25 floppy disk somewhere but I no longer have a drive to play it in. the version I have on my PC doesn't show any mat at the front door.

ZORK I: The Great Underground Empire Copyright (c) 1981, 1982, 1983 Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved. ZORK is a registered trademark of Infocom, Inc. Revision 88 / Serial number 840726

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded
front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

Also there is a rug inside the house as DarkLizerd refers to above, but no rubber mat.

However, in a version of ZORK (1,2& 3 in the one game/file) which is called zdungeon it starts with a rubber mat at the door.

This game is in INFORM6 compiled to Zcode here http://ifarchive.smallwhitehouse.org/if-archive/games/zcode/zdungeon.z5

ZORK

Welcome to ZORK.
Release 12 / Serial number 990623 / Inform v6.14 Library 6/7
West of House
This is an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
A rubber mat saying ‘Welcome to Zork!’ lies by the door.

The key to this mystery may be the fact that Zork was originally implemented as a mainframe game, then split into three parts to fit on 8-bit micros; this reduced version may well have been trimmed down in other ways -- for instance by removing a not-so-important rubber mat. Modern ports on the other hand are likely to be based on the original mainframe game, and since they had enough room there was no need to leave stuff out.

I'm so stoked to have so many replies! Thanks guys. Just glad to know I'm not the only person who remembers it how it was when I was a kid. My grandfather ordered Zork via mail in the early 80's, it came in an awesome box with a map and booklet of hints. It was so exciting to have that physical treasure chest to go with it, all the artwork as well. Something magical about it that can't be recreated, I suppose the era of ultimate communication killed some of the mystery. Playing on a 4inch screen, the bright green text. No one my age (early 30's) remembers when there was no such thing as an operating system. Pop in that big ass floppy, DIR /p. Find that exec command! Haha.

I tried playing the one on here and I didn't really get into it because I felt it was too different from what I remember. Perhaps I need the old boxy monochrome monitor? :)

I had an apple IIe (and my older sister had an atari too, though I don't really remember much about it aside from it having/using a joystick), so had some experience with floppy disks, but not with command line/prompt usage, as a kid

but now I've learning to program, and I know some of the command line/prompt/shell stuff...

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never played zork though nor other similar-aged-yeared text games

I think the oldest I played was King's Quest 5 on one of my friend's computers, on a (commodore or IBM) computer... I think... and I liked it, but had a hard time figuring stuff out as I was still a very young kid.

I got NES, and loved Maniac Mansion and Shadowgate (both excellent text graphic games), (and zelda: 1+2, my first RPGs), but then it was SNES and my discovery (aside from NES zeldas) of RPGs (my friend gave me this 'Secret of Mana' SNES game for my birthday... I was playing it all night long as my friends slept - slumber birthday party, and never cared for any of the other gifts, lol. Though, I had a hard time, getting stuck and not knowing what to do... when it was morning, I was just at the dwarf cave, lol), which I've loved most of all, ever since... but I do still enjoy text games too.

HK You owe it to yourself to at least play (or attempt to play) Zork once.

can anyone tell me where to find textadventures map of Zork I? The layout is different than the original and I'm having a hard time navigating. Thanks!

Search online...