I didn’t know there was a Minnesota connection to the game “Oregon Trail” and “Lemonade” – although it’s possible I knew it at one time and forgot.
“The original version of The Oregon Trail(K+T) was created in 1971 by three student teachers at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota,[1][dead link] using a mainframe computer.[2] One of these students, senior Don Rawitsch, had the idea to create a computer program for a history class he was teaching, and recruited two of his friends, Paul Dillenberger and Bill Heinemann, both of whom were students teaching math, to help him. In 1974 Rawitsch took a job at Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, or MECC, a state-funded organization that developed educational software for the classroom. He uploaded his game into the organization’s network where it could be accessed by schools across Minnesota.”
The Oregon Trail (video game). (2009, August 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:25, August 28, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Oregon_Trail_(video_game)&oldid=310547795
I played the game on Apple ][ computers. I think my first experience with the game was probably the fifth grade.
I spent a lot more time with other games, but I feel more nostaglia for “Oregon Trail” and “Lemonade” than I ever will for Centipede or Ms. Pacman.
I think I have just thought up a killer iPhone game – containing the best elements of a cross country journey with dangerous dysentary and elements of the sit-com “The Office“. Now I have to buy a mac and get the SDK!
