I Miss Oregon Trail

[terpkristin]

MAN, I loved this game. If I could find an emulation of it now (which I'm sure I could if I looked), I'd totally play it...

I want this shirt: http://www.bustedtees.com/product.php?name=dysentery



Also, at http://www1.collegehumor.com/newsletter/165/ you can find an interview with the creators:

The For-Serious Interview: Fathers of The Oregon Trail.

Paul Dillenberger, Bill Heinemann, and Don Rawitsch may not be on any legal tender, but that doesn’t mean they’re not just as important as some of our presidents. While student teaching in Minnesota, these three men created the edutainment classic The Oregon Trail.

The Oregon Trail’s journey began in 1971 on a teletype machine. The game was entirely text-based. To hunt, you had to type either “BANG” or "POW" accurately and within a certain time limit. When Don left to work at the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), he loaded the game on the mainframe that served the public schools of Minneapolis. The game was so in demand that it was using 90% of the computer’s resources. When Apple won a bid to supply the district with their computers, The Oregon Trail was ported and the rest, as they say, is history.

The teletype version would be the last version that Paul, Bill, and Don would work on together. Paul became a math teacher in the Minneapolis public school system. Bill moved on to become a computer programmer. Don, who took the game a bit further than the others, went on to work at various other educational software firms over the years.

I thought it might be fun if we got today's The Oregon Trail fans ask the creators of the game what was on their mind. I invited the kids in my mother's third grade class to write in questions, which I then presented to the boys.

Wilson Ojito, age 9, writes:
What's your top time on The Oregon Trail?
Don: As I recall, it generally takes about 6 months of time in the simulation to get there which is also historically accurate. So I don't know, some time around September first maybe?
Bill: I think I remember late September was the best I ever did.
Paul: That sounds about right to me too.

Jenny Lurtz, age 11, writes:
Are you making Oregon Trail the Movie? If you do, our class should be in it.
Paul They haven’t asked us.
Don: You know one thing that we eventually produced was a teacher’s guide for this, and I had something to do with that.
intern jeff: Did that have like cheat codes and stuff?Don: Well, one of the things that I suggested was that teachers have the students learn about the travels west in a number of different ways like their textbooks, like a diary, like watching a John Wayne movie, like playing The Oregon Trail simulation, and then compare them and talk about how is it we know what is historically accurate.

Jane Hendel, age 10, writes:
I like Oregon Trail better than SimCity but less than Tony Hawk, which do you think's best?
Don: I’m not familiar with Tony Hawk.
Paul: Is he a skateboarder?
Bill: I haven’t played the skateboard game but I have played SimCity and that’s a lot of fun.
Paul We’re partial though.

Madison Henry, age 10, writes:
Is it pronounced Ore-gen or Ore-gone?
Paul It’s actually Ore-gen. That’s the way they pronounce it Oregon. My brother’s from Oregon and he always corrects me when I pronounce it Ore-gone.

Brandon Berkenstein, age 9, writes:
What are the dirtiest words you've ever used for your team names?
Paul How about the mud-hens or something like that?
Bill: They have team names now in Oregon Trail? We didn’t do that back then... we just typed in our own names and I think I recall that if you died the next person on the trail would pass a gravestone with the name of the previous person that was on the trail.
Don: In the Apple version, if somebody died, you were asked to type in what you would like on the tombstone, and that was an opportunity for kids to practice all the bad words that they knew.
intern jeff: but you guys must have done it too, right?
Bill: It was too long ago.
Don: Otherwise we would have screened them out.
Paul We put some silly things in.
Bill: We have probably expressed obscenities over the fact that at the time the game was invented, nobody knew about software royalties. If we had, we’d each own an island today.

Mark Rebreck, age 9, writes:
Did you ever think about doing a sequel like in the future or something?
-silence-
Paul The kind of software that is written nowdays is very different. It takes a team of people.
Don: The MECC organization had that thought and produced a sequel that was called the Amazon Trail. I don’t recall what was in it but that was created. It always seemed to me the main purposes was that you would get kids thinking about what it was like to push out into the unknown, no matter what era it might be in.

Mindy Pontzon, age 10, writes:
What happens when you start the game with zero sets of clothes? Do you become an Indian?
Bill: We weren’t allowed to use the word Indian. But when we first wrote it we were reprimanded because we were in Minneapolis which has a high Indian population and we were told that you don’t want to put the kids in the position where the Indians are enemies. That was one thing I remember because we kind of made up things that would happen to you on the trail before Don did some research, and helpful Indians would show you how to find food. We could use Indian in that context.
intern jeff: They also helped you cross the river. For a price.Don: That was actually true, though the historical records show that Indians were often helpful, even moreso than hostile but anyway if you go on the train with zero clothes, you will die fairly soon. You’ll probably get pneumonia or something.
Paul Not to mention the stares you would get too.

Michael Gutman, age 10, writes:
How come you can only carry so much food back to the wagon?
Bill: You can only lift so much as a frontier person.
Paul If you took more back it would rot and you would get sick anyway.
Don: You kill a buffalo, and your just out there by yourself, you can’t drag him. I mean, it’s accurate.
intern jeff: What if you’re really strong though?
Paul Well then you could take more, but not the whole buffalo.


/tk

[Ramzavail]

classic game, I couldn't agree with you more.

[DanGarion]

Here you go.

http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2972

Don't know if it will work for ya but there it is.

[mhass]

I'm pretty sure that game was trying to teach me something, but damned if I didn't run to the machine in the school computer lab with it installed anyway.

[GreenMonster]

Is there any more of a joy than "hunting for food".

[sterlingice]

That and Number Munchers (I have yet to run across someone who could beat me at Number Muchers but I'm sure my skills have badly degraded) got me through old timey computer classes.

SI

[Vince]

Originally Posted by GreenMonster

Is there any more of a joy than "hunting for food".

Naming one of your characters after your little brother and leaving him behind because he caught the flu.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

That game was awesome, I always ended shooting myself when hunting though.

[LoneStarGirl]

I LOVED that game!!! I was just thinking about it the other day. I can't remember a damn thing about it, other than i loved it.

[GreenMonster]

Originally Posted by Vince

Naming one of your characters after your little brother and leaving him behind because he caught the flu.

Good call, I have little brothers and I see how this could be fun..

[Vince]

I was a sadistic little kid -- I used to get excited when Ronnie got Dysentary or a Broken Arm -- I'd immediately leave him behind thinking "Woo, dodged a bullet there. Our sacrificial lamb won't hinder us at all!"

[cthomer5000]

Fucking Indian guides were never worth the money I dropped on them.

[Passacaglia]

I remember only playing this game during lunch hour, so we'd just keep continuing on the trail, totally not caring who died. Good times.

[Coffee Warlord]

I remember a friend of mine playing one of the newfangled versions while totally drunk...spent his starting money on....

A dozen grandfather clocks.

Enough money leftover to spend on mules, and off to Oregon he went, carrying the clocks!

[hhiipp]

I downloaded the game, but every time I try to run it my pc locks tight. Anyone have luck with it and have any tips?

[Passacaglia]

My college roomate got a new computer in like '97, and it had some newfangled version called Yukon Trail. I played it once, it wasn't nearly as fun.

[Blackadar]

I liked Miss Oregon's trail too...


















(ok, bad play on words)

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

I always liked it when half the party died trying to ford a river that's depth is 3 feet.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

I liked Miss Oregon's trail too...


(ok, bad play on words)

Better than my parody thread idea of "I miss Oregon Tail" with a picture of Miss Oregon. I'm learning the fine art of restraint.

[korme]

this has to be the most played game of all time in the USA. i mean, think about, almost everyone who went through grade school played this, right? who has never played Oregon Trail?

[Chas in Cinti]

Boy... this is a lot nicer than the one i played in school... Of course I probably played it in '82 or '83... there sure as heck was no color!

-Chas

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Shorty3281

this has to be the most played game of all time in the USA. i mean, think about, almost everyone who went through grade school played this, right? who has never played Oregon Trail?

It's probably between that, Tetris, and the original Mario. For instance, Super Mario Bros has something like 42 million copies in circulation, which are now propping up doors, leveling tables, being used as bookends, and filling up 99c bins in used video game stores everywhere.

SI

[Cringer]

Anyone tried out Oregon Trail II?

[Celeval]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

It's probably between that, Tetris, and the original Mario. For instance, Super Mario Bros has something like 42 million copies in circulation, which are now propping up doors, leveling tables, being used as bookends, and filling up 99c bins in used video game stores everywhere.

The dreaded Solitaire/Minesweeper combo.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Celeval

The dreaded Solitaire/Minesweeper combo.

Ooh. Yeah. Forgot about those. Tho, much more likely solitaire. I've seen many a dope in the computer lab take one look at minesweeper and not even bother to try and play. Yet even the most dimwitted and computer inept people can play solitaire. Hell, I know some people that's all they know how to do on a computer.

SI

[Hammer755]

Originally Posted by Shorty3281

this has to be the most played game of all time in the USA. i mean, think about, almost everyone who went through grade school played this, right? who has never played Oregon Trail?

We didn't play Oregon Trail in school, but we did have Cross-Country USA, where you were a truck driver and had to traverse the country picking up and delivering goods.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

I remember putting the floppy of Oregon Trail on the computer all those years ago! Those were happy days.

[Sharpieman]

Originally Posted by Hammer755

We didn't play Oregon Trail in school, but we did have Cross-Country USA, where you were a truck driver and had to traverse the country picking up and delivering goods.

I didn't even have to look at your location to know you were from the south.

[Hammer755]

Originally Posted by Sharpieman

I didn't even have to look at your location to know you were from the south.

I actually grew up in Ohio. Sorry to spoil your theory.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER

I remember putting the floppy of Oregon Trail on the computer all those years ago! Those were happy days.

The thing that most blows away my mind to this day is that they fit Sim City 2000 onto 2 floppys. Doom, as well.

SI

[General Mike]

Where in (fill in the blank) is Carmen Sandiego was better.

[Danny]

Try playing those games now. They are boring as hell. A better statement might be, "I miss the way I felt when playing Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego".

[sterlingice]

Yeah, but it's been shown that people don't care what's the best game. That said, I'll agree, the Carmen Sandiego games were great

SI

[Franklinnoble]

They've got Oregon Trail V now.

[Yellow5]

hxxp://www.virtualapple.com/

A virtual apple emulator with Oregon Trail and a ton of old games that tried to teach us things.

hxxp://www.virtualapple.com/oregontraildisk.html for the Oregon Trail game.

[andy m]

its certainly no "granny's garden".