 In 1984 Appleton passed up an economics graduate fellowship at Vanderbilt University and moved into his parents’ basement, where he developed programs for his Macintosh computer.Appleton has designed and written more than 30 professional software publications throughout his career, including World Builder, the first-ever rich media authoring tool.Appleton also created the multimedia programming language SuperCard and developed , a national best-selling CD-ROM game that sold more than 5 million copies worldwide.