Gamertell

Online publication SiliconUserhas released an article on MECC, an old designer of Apple II Edutainment games.  Many young adults who were children in the ‘80s will remember some of the games they made:  The Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, Number Munchers and Dinopark Tycoon, among many others.  Oregon Trail is known by some to be one of the best edutainment games ever made.

MECC was formed by the state of Minnesota to create educational software.  Its first version of The Oregon Trail, known simply as Oregon, was created in 1974.

The article describes MECC’s decision to make software for the Apple II instead of the Commodore PET, which helped influence the United States’ school systems to prefer Apple products for over a decade.

In 1984, MECC became a public corporation owned by the state, and in 1996, it was sold to SoftKey, which became The Learning Company.  After a series of takeovers and corporate shuffling, The Learning Company remains.  It periodically re-releases old titles including the fifth edition of Oregon Trail which was released on the PC and Mac in 2001.

Read [SiliconUser] Via [Slashdot] Also Read [GameSpot]