In 1980-81, there wasn't even MU* games around. The original MUD1 was "released" in 1980, if you were on the arpanet at the time. The first commercial MUD did

In 1980-81, there wasn't even MU* games around. The original MUD1 was "released" in 1980, if you were on the arpanet at the time. The first commercial MUD didn't come around until 1983 with Scepter of Goth[0]. So it's likely that the story was fiction (or the timeframe is off) [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scepter_of_Goth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scepter_of_Goth