Comment Sounds like a good companion book to this one: (Score 2) 18
http://games.slashdot.org/story/08/07/02/1317200/dungeons-and-desktops
Take the two of them together for an unbroken history of RPGs up to about a few years ago. I'm nearly finished with Dungeons and Desktops, and despite a slight bias against Amigas (or ports in general) and an unfamiliarity with certain D&D rules, it's a great tour of CRPGs from the past. Use the author's Gamasutra articles for the full-color screenshots, though.