Oregon (video game)

Oregon

HP 2000 - Teletype printout.

Developer MECC Publisher Creative Computing, MECC Published 1971-12-03 Platforms Apple II, Atari 8-bit, CDC Cyber 70, Commodore 64, HP 2100, Sol-20 Genres Educational, Management simulator, Simulation Themes Adventure, Historic, Western, Wilderness Series Trail Distribution Freeware, Open source

Oregon, also known as The Oregon Trail, is an educational strategy video game developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger for the HP 2000 which debuted on 1971-12-03. The game was created as a teaching aide for students and meant to educate them on the difficulties pioneers would have faced traveling in a covered wagon along the actual Oregon Trail in the 1840s from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. The game was originally played, not on a monitor, but printed on a teletype.

After a few years, the game became popular among schools in the Minnesota area, and publishing rights were bought by MECC in 1974. MECC ported the game to the CDC Cyber 70 in 1974 and Sol-20 in 1978. The CDC Cyber 70 source code was published in Creative Computing in the May 1978 issue. The game became quite successful, and, in 1980, MECC created an updated version for the Apple II which was included in a program called Elementary-Volume 6, then for other platforms in Expeditions. The game went on to spawn over a dozen sequels and spinoffs in the Trail series.

The HP 2100 original was programmed in HP Time-Shared BASIC, the CDC Cyber 70 port was programmed in an updated Control Data BASIC, and the Sol-20 port was programmed in Processor Technology BASIC. Source code for some of these versions is linked to below. In 2015, Chris Torrence ported the 1975 version of the source to the Apple II using Applesoft BASIC.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. Apple II port.
Finished	2021-04-28.

In elementary school, I played a later version on the Commodore 64 in a compilation package called Expeditions. I only learned about this original version while researching the history of the game. Wanting to try it out, I found the 1975 version ported to the Apple II and beat it.

Review

2	2	1	1	3

Best Version: Apple II

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• It helped popularize the historical event and probably caused some players to become more interested in history.
• The manual that MECC produced helped teachers add educational value of the game.

Bad

• Nothing.

Ugly

• The game is short, dull, and uninformative. I found it trivial to beat, and there are no difficulty settings to make it harder.
• The frequent random events are entirely outside of your control, and, for the few things you do have control of, don't matter all that much. As long as you buy items sensibly and succeed at shooting, the game pretty much plays itself.
• The game is completely lacking in media. There are no graphics, music, or sound effects.

Media

Documentation

• 

  Manual, 1977.

• 

  Creative Computing, May 1978 - Cover.

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  Creative Computing, source - Part 1.

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  Creative Computing, source - Part 2.

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  Creative Computing, source - Part 3.

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  Creative Computing, source - Part 4.

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  Creative Computing, source - Part 5.

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  Creative Computing, source - Part 6.

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  Creative Computing, source - Part 7.

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  Creative Computing, source - Part 8.

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  Game play print out.

Screenshots

• 

  Apple II - Playing the game.

Videos

Longplay - Atari 8-bit.

Longplay - Commodore 64.

Play Online

Apple I, CDC Cyber 70, Commodore 64

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	Women are only mentioned, they don't play an active role.
Bechdel test?	Fail	Women never speak.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Indians are mentioned, but don't play an important role.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Download

Because Oregon was released as open source, I'm including it here. This download includes the source of four different ports with the FreeBASIC port compiled.

• Download (Info) - All versions.

Links