Robert W. Lafore (born March 11, 1938) is a computer programmer, systems analyst and entrepreneur. He coined the term "interactive fiction", and was an early software developer in this field.
Career
Lafore worked as a systems analyst for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In the early days of microcomputing, he wrote programs in BASIC for the TRS-80 and founded his own software company.
Lafore has written a number of text adventure games, for which he coined the term "interactive fiction", for the company Adventure International.
Lafore has authored a number of books on the subject of computer programming, including Soul of CP/M., and Assembly Language Primer for the IBM PC and XT. Later books included C++ Interactive Course, Object-Oriented Programming in C++, Turbo C Programming for the IBM, and C Programming Using Turbo C++. At one time he was an editor for the Waite Group publishers.