TITLE
How You Wound Up Playing ‘The Oregon Trail’ in Computer Class
AUTHOR
Matt Jancer
PUBLICATION
Smithsonian Magazine
YEAR
2016
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
The Oregon Trail, The Yukon Trail, Number Munchers, Word Munchers, The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary, Lemonade Stand, DinoPark Tycoon, Storybook Weaver. All games you played in school, all made by the same state-funded company—the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. Never heard of MECC? It went hand in hand with Apple Computer Inc. in its earliest days. Steve Jobs said as much in a 1995 interview with the Smithsonian Institution: “One of the things that built Apple II’s was schools buying Apple II’s.” Apple II’s loaded with MECC games.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
MECC
GAMES MENTIONED
The Oregon Trail
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Paul Dillenberger
Bill Heinemann
Don Rawitsch
PLATFORMS MENTIONED
Apple II