18 votes

The story of The Oregon Trail

11 comments

  1. cfabbro
    (edited )
    Link
    Obligatory link to where you can play the original 1990 MECC version of the game (or the Deluxe Edition): https://oregontrail.ws/

    Obligatory link to where you can play the original 1990 MECC version of the game (or the Deluxe Edition):
    https://oregontrail.ws/

    5 votes
  2. [3]
    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link
    This has been some enjoyable background listening (while playing at 1.75x speed) I don't want to make a new post, but for fans of Tasting History What Pioneers ate on the Oregon Trail

    This has been some enjoyable background listening (while playing at 1.75x speed)

    I don't want to make a new post, but for fans of Tasting History What Pioneers ate on the Oregon Trail

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Heh, I also listened to it at increased speed too (2x in my case). It was still perfectly understandable though, which is nice. p.s. Are you like me and when you listen to things at increased...

      Heh, I also listened to it at increased speed too (2x in my case). It was still perfectly understandable though, which is nice.

      p.s. Are you like me and when you listen to things at increased speed, and then go back to normal speed it suddenly feels like people are talking in suuuuper slooooow motion? That's the one drawback I find to doing that. It takes a while for me to get used to normal speed again afterwards. :P

      I also second the Tasting History video too. I was actually even planning on posting it to Tildes when it was first released last week, but ended up getting distracted with something else and forgetting about it.

      2 votes
      1. DefinitelyNotAFae
        Link Parent
        Depends on the video! I have some I enjoy the content enough that I enjoy/prefer listening to it at regular speed. Almost everything else is at least 1.15-1.25 for podcasts. Videos depend. But...

        Depends on the video! I have some I enjoy the content enough that I enjoy/prefer listening to it at regular speed. Almost everything else is at least 1.15-1.25 for podcasts. Videos depend. But yeah if I slowed that one down it'd be interminable. 1.75 was chosen on a whim, I might try the rest at 2x later, work got busy.

        Michael Hobbes' podcasts don't get sped up, he talks really fast and I like the shows a lot so I let them vibe.

        D&D actual play content, especially Worlds Beyond Number or NADDPOD get regular play speeds due to the music and editing.

        Most everything else is sped up at least a little.

        2 votes
  3. [7]
    lou
    (edited )
    Link
    Second time you posted before me :P Good lord your tags are like a book! Not one edit either. All at once. A masterpiece not even @mycketforvirrad would touch! For a more on topic comment, this is...

    Second time you posted before me :P

    Good lord your tags are like a book! Not one edit either. All at once. A masterpiece not even @mycketforvirrad would touch!

    For a more on topic comment, this is the perfect subject to a gaming historian that is also an actual historian. He goes straight to the sources and it's awesome. It's unfortunate that this will probably not be one of his most viewed works given that it clearly took a lot more work than the others, with the interviews and all. It's hard to compete with the history of Mario, or Tetris.

    1 vote
    1. [6]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Yeah, I went a lot overboard with the tags this time. But I was writing the tags down while I watched the video, so it didn't feel excessive at the time... until I hit submit, that is. Then I...

      Yeah, I went a lot overboard with the tags this time. But I was writing the tags down while I watched the video, so it didn't feel excessive at the time... until I hit submit, that is. Then I realized how many I had included. LOL :P

      And yeah, it really is a shame this video probably won't get views commensurate with the effort it clearly took to create. The game was way before a lot of people's time though, and didn't quite have the same lasting power or broad appeal of Mario and the like, so it's also kinda understandable why it won't hit the same numbers. But I still fondly remember playing Oregon Trail on giant 8" floppy disks on my elementary school's computer... So I loved learning more about its creation!

      3 votes
      1. [5]
        Dr_Amazing
        Link Parent
        The big thing to me is that it's a very American game. Other edutainment games like Carmen Santiago, Math Blaster and the Super Solver series made it to other countries. (I played them in Canada...

        The big thing to me is that it's a very American game. Other edutainment games like Carmen Santiago, Math Blaster and the Super Solver series made it to other countries. (I played them in Canada at least) but despite Oregon Trail being like THE school computer game, I never played it till way later.

        2 votes
        1. [2]
          cfabbro
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          Yeah, it definitely is a very American themed game, and the history it teaches is unique to America. But I'm Canadian too, and played it in a Canadian elementary school here in Ontario. So I don't...

          Yeah, it definitely is a very American themed game, and the history it teaches is unique to America. But I'm Canadian too, and played it in a Canadian elementary school here in Ontario. So I don't think you actually need to be American to have encountered it in school, or enjoyed it. IMO it was just a fun game, even stripping away the American history element of it.

          p.s. MECC distributed and licensed their content to schools all around the world:

          Beginning in 1980 with the Iowa Department of Education, 5,000 school districts around the world purchased site licenses for MECC software. It distributed 250,000 copies of MECC software around the world by 1982, and the "Institutional Membership" business became so successful that state subsidies ended. In 1983 MECC became a taxable, profit-making company, owned by the state of Minnesota but otherwise independent. By the 1985-1986 school year MECC offered more than 300 products and had about $7 million in annual sales.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECC#Microcomputer_technology

          2 votes
          1. gwoo
            Link Parent
            I remember playing it on the BBC Micro in my school (equivalent to elementary) in the UK. It was pretty popular here too as far as I can remember.

            I remember playing it on the BBC Micro in my school (equivalent to elementary) in the UK. It was pretty popular here too as far as I can remember.

            1 vote
        2. [2]
          DefinitelyNotAFae
          Link Parent
          Did you play Yukon Trail by chance? You got to pick a sled dog team and then took a trip with them. (Truly I recall nothing else)

          Did you play Yukon Trail by chance? You got to pick a sled dog team and then took a trip with them. (Truly I recall nothing else)

          1. Dr_Amazing
            (edited )
            Link Parent
            Doesn't ring a bell, but I remember playing a lot of Quarter-Mile Math and Cross Country Canada

            Doesn't ring a bell, but I remember playing a lot of Quarter-Mile Math and Cross Country Canada

            1 vote