The History of The Oregon Trail

Rick Zeman writes "Those of us of a certain age recall The Oregon Trail with fondness as the pioneering educational game that had the audacity to make learning fun! This article takes a look at the history behind the game, even going back to its initial text-based offering, showing how some programming magic pulled a generation of kids together. Quoting: '[F]or two weeks, the roommates holed up in a former janitor’s closet at Bryant Junior High School, where the school’s teletype was stored, and spent their evenings programming. Using Rawitsch’s historical knowledge, Heinemann and Dillenberger developed a series of algorithms, punching hundreds of lines of code into the teletype. But just because they created the program didn’t mean they could breeze through it. When Heinemann tried The Oregon Trail for the first time, he died of pneumonia midway!'"

Surprising...

[guytoronto]

That he didn't die of dysentery.

The Oregon Trail ... pioneering educational game

[Nutria]

I see what you did there!

Very educational game

[dj245]

I took away exactly one thing from this game.

Q: Why did buffalo become an endangered species?
A: Because hunting buffalo is fun.

Re:Rehash from 2011 story?

[wonkey_monkey]

Yeah, it totally does look like a rehash of the story we saw here a couple of years ago [slashdot.org]! I've also only read the first few paragraphs of this new article, too, but I also haven't found anything different from the previous one. I'm not suggesting plagiarism either, I'm just also saying it looks like the author just took the information from previous stories and rewrote it in his own words, without adding anything new. What a douche!