mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
I’m a long-time fan of the Oregon Trail computer game (and I’ve been thinking about all things Oregon Trail lately). I remember first encountering the game on an Apple IIe computer during the second grade — it fascinated me. Why did my oxen keep dying? How come people kept getting dysentery and breaking their legs? Why can’t I just play this game all day?! In later years, I bought an Apple IIgs for the sole purpose of playing Oregon Trail. It didn’t fascinate me quite as much, though it did bring back memories.
Good old Wikipedia brings us a complete history of The Oregon Trail. The game was originally developed in the early 70’s, designed for use in a history class one of the developers was teaching. After the initial release, development moved to the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), which was a rather interesting state agency that eventually produced a bunch of educational software.
The game itself guides the player through a virtual trip down the Oregon Trail, starting with provisioning the wagon, selecting the party members, and then setting out on the journey. You could choose to play the game as a banker, a carpenter, or a farmer — this affected how much money you started out with, and thus the difficulty of the game. (If you completed the game as the farmer, which was completely impossible for me in the second grade, you’d get an extra-high score at the end.)
You can read more at Wikipedia, but there are a variety of other excellent Oregon Trail resources on the web. Gaming Our Way Through History discusses the game from an educator’s perspective. The Educational Software Classics site has detailed info on the game’s creators, the game’s innovations, and some screenshots (scroll down). Finally, if you’re on Windows and running Firefox, you can Play Oregon Trail on VirtualApple. The rest of us can try out Westward Trail, a web-based Oregon Trail clone with updated graphics.
Comments (5)
Comment
Oregon Trail was my son’s first computer game. He played it on an Apple IIc (he was about 5 at the time). When he was really angry at his playmates, he swore he was going to give them all smallpox. It took me awhile to figure out where he got that from – it was the Oregon Trail game. Love that computer learning!
posted by B Marlowe on 8-1-2007 at 9:36 am
It’s great to see one of my favorite games from childhood. I remember playing this in computer lab back in grade school, when floppy discs were floppy.
I tried both the VirtualApple version and the clone, and I have to say, I prefer the original graphics. Both fail when it comes to hunting though. The hunting on Westward Trail is awful. You only get one shot. As for the Apple version, hitting space bar to shoot kept dumping me into the toolbar of my browser instead of firing. I got so frustrated I closed the tab.
Still, though, thanks for the flashback.
posted by Caleythia on 8-1-2007 at 11:21 am
Total classic. In 6th grade, all the computer lab was good for was typing and playing Oregon Trail.
posted by Tina K on 8-1-2007 at 9:28 pm
In High School they had Oregon Trail on the big 5″ floppies. No graphics, just text. I don’t remember how but I figured how to change the text and save it so the next person who played it read my text. Being in High School my sense of humor was “dirty” as were the new things I thought up for the game. I never did hear if anybody played my version.
posted by John Dough on 8-1-2007 at 10:43 pm
People using Mac OS X may be interested in AppleIIGo, a nice Apple II emulator in the form of awidget.
Just do a Google search for it, or search on Apple’s widget download page.
posted by andy on 8-6-2007 at 1:02 am