Grab your hats and hang on for the adventure of a lifetime with Oregon Trail® II! Relive an exciting period of history in this action packed adventure that changed the United States forever. The combination of full-motion video, soundtrack, digitized speech, over one hundred characters and hundreds of historical landmarks gives you an unbelievable adventure at every turn in the trail. Experience Oregon Trail® II the interactive virtual trail adventure.
If you want to check out the history of the Oregon Trail, we have a history of the trail page just for you.
| Target Audience: | Ages 10 and Up |
|---|---|
| MECC Learning Category: | Learning Adventures |
| Support Materials: | User’s Guide, On-Screen Help |
| Product Number: | HCD 644 |
| Retail Cost: | $49.95 |
Overview
Discover the excitement and hardships of the westward movement in Oregon Trail II. Relive two decades in history that changed the United States forever. Blaze new trails west with incredible 3-D graphics, a movie-quality soundtrack, digitized speech, and dozens of interesting characters.
You’ll face new challenges and decisions as a pioneer while you explore the Overland Trails in this American history saga. Enhance your journey with facts about the trails that are compiled in an extensive on-line guide book, and record your travels in your personal travel journal. With it’s multiple levels of difficulty, Oregon Trail® II is perfect for ages 10-adult. The action is never the same as you venture westward as a Greenhorn, advance as an Adventurer, or lead as a Trail Guide. You’ll uncover action-packed adventure at each turn in the trail with Oregon Trail® II.
 | – Relive a period in time that changed the United States forever – Learn about geography of the Old West |
 | – Capture experiences and improve writing skills with the built-in journal – See over 5,000 photo-realistic images on your way west |
 | – Listen to hours of digitized speech from over a hundred characters, and motion-picture quality soundtrack |
Differences between Oregon Trail & Oregon Trail II*
| Category | OREGON TRAIL | OREGON TRAIL II |
|---|---|---|
| IMAGES | 100 hand drawn images | 5,000 realistic images, including photographs and 3 dimensional renderings of towns and forts. |
| SOUNDS | 19 folk songs to sing along with | Film-like soundtrack, plus 46 tunes |
| LEVELS OF PLAY | One level of play | Multiple levels of play |
| DEPARTURE OPTIONS | Travel the Oregon Trail from one departure point to one destination | Choose from the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails and multiple departure points and destinations for over 100 possible routes. |
| TRAVEL TIMES | Travel the trail only in 1848 | Travel any time from 1840 to 1860 – the exerience is different every year |
| OCCUPATION CHOICES | Choice of 8 occupations | Create your own character by choosing from 25 occupations and over a dozen different skills |
System Requirements
| Macintosh® Product Information: | Windows® Product Information: |
| CD-ROM System Compatibility: 68030 (LC III or greater) 68040 or Power Macintosh recommended System 7.1 or greater 5 MB RAM required (8 MB RAM recommended) 13″ or larger color display (640 x 480, 256-color) Double-speed CD-ROM drive 12 MB of hard disk space | CD-ROM System Compatibility: 486 or greater Microsoft® Windows® 3.1 or greater 256-color SVGA display 4 MB RAM required (8 MB RAM recommended) Windows-compatible mouse Windows-compatible sound card Double-speed CD-ROM drive 12 MB of hard disk space |
The History of The Oregon Trail
The Educational Simulation
 | It’s hard to believe that the story of The Oregon Traileducational simulation and its follow-up, Oregon Trail II, began more than twenty years ago. The original program was devised in 1971 by Don Rawitsch, Paul Dillenburger, and Bill Heineman, then student teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools, using a teletype machine and a mainframe computer. |
| It was entirely text-based with no sound and graphics, a simple point-to-point simulation in which up to sixteen students using terminals physically removed from the mainframe could play simultaneously. To hunt, students had to type BANG quickly enough to “shoot” the game. They had to wait several seconds before learning whether their hunt was successful. (For those old enough to remember, do you recall those magic words?– “Good eatin’ tonight!”) Don Rawitsch joined MECC at its founding in 1973, bringing the Oregon simulation with him. Employing the more powerful mainframe technology of the MECC Timeshare System, several hundred students at many different school sites could soon take part in the simulation at the same time. But the program was still entirely text-based. And so it remained for the next several years. Nevertheless, the simulation continued to grow in popularity. A major leap forward occurred in 1979, when the trail simulation was first redeveloped for a microcomputer: the Apple II. The program was titled Oregon, and it was one of several programs on a five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disk called Elementary Volume 6. For the first time, students all over the country could enjoy this historical simulation. There were now simple graphics and sound, which look extremely primitive by today’s standards, but which were a major breakthrough for the time. Elementary Volume 6 quickly became MECC’s best-selling product at the time, almost certainly because of the popularity of the Oregon simulation. Keep in mind that this was at the dawn of the microcomputing age. Few schools had microcomputers in 1979. A very strong argument can be made that Oregon was the first “hit” program in the field of educational computing. In fact, as the popularity of the program spread, the use of microcomputers in schools spread as well. | The two phenomena fed each other: as microcomputer use grew, the popularity of Oregon grew, which further encouraged more microcomputer purchases and use. The Apple II soon dominated the school computer market. And the whole field of educational software developed. The Oregon simulation was, in fact, the first of the “founding programs” in the field. Later versions of the Oregon simulation, still part of Elementary Volume 6, were developed for the Atari, Commodore 64, and Radio Shack computers. But the next really big step took place in 1985, when Apple II Version 1.0 of The Oregon Trail first appeared as a stand-alone product for the home market, where computers were finally beginning to have a major impact. The greatly expanded program had been totally redesigned with an increased emphasis on historical accuracy and validity as well as educational value. Graphics and sound were also enhanced. The Oregon Trailimmediately became MECC’s new best-seller. Other versions of The Oregon Trail followed: Apple IIGS and networkable Apple versions in 1987; an MS-DOS version in 1988; an enhanced VGA/MCGA version for MS-DOS in 1991. Also in 1991, MECC introduced Wagon Train 1848, a Macintosh-only cooperative-learning version of The Oregon Trail in which students playing together over a network could link up their computers to form wagon trains. In essence, each Mac became a separate wagon in the train, and students could communicate with each other and work together over the network. The Macintosh version of The Oregon Trail itself, with a whole new desktop interface and vastly improved graphics and sound, followed soon after. And in 1992 the program’s desktop interface moved over to MS-DOS as well, with the added appeal of high-resolution VGA graphics, digitized sound, MIDI music, and other enhanced features. |
 | The first CD-ROM versions of The Oregon Trail(MECC’s first CD-ROM product ever) appeared in 1993. These were basically the previously-released Macintosh and MS-DOS editions of the program with improvements in sound, music, and graphics, but now, of course, delivered on the increasingly popular CD-ROM medium. These, too, quickly became best-sellers. But even as these first CD-ROMs were being shipped, |
| MECC was already making plans for an all-new version of the program–one that would from its very conception be totally redesigned with digital technology and CD storage capabilities in mind.It would be the culmination of nearly two full years of research and development. It would be the first of a whole new generation of MECC programs. | And it would be so different, so much more advanced than any previous version of The Oregon Trail that it had to have a new name: Oregon Trail II. So while there had already been many different Oregon Trails, this was the first one that virtually demanded those Roman numerals, to signal that something really new had taken place. In short, the trail would never be the same again. |
Developer of The Oregon Trail II – Wayne Studer
Oregon Trail II has so far been the biggest single project I’ve worked on in all my time at MECC — and the most exciting. From beginning to end it took nearly two full years to create. The first year was taken up first with “brainstorming” design meetings, in which we asked ourselves questions like “What will it look like?” “How will it be different from previous versions of The Oregon Trail?” “What new features should we add?” “If we could do anything we wanted to do, what would we do?” and so on. Then I began to conduct all of the necessary research. Over the course of several months I read literally dozens of books, articles, and authentic historical trail diaries. I poured over detailed maps, plotting out the path of the old western trails, for weeks at a time. In short, I turned myself into an “expert” on the trail experience.
One of the most dramatic decisions we made during this early phase of design was to expand the scope of the simulation so that it included not just the Oregon Trail but also the California and Mormon Trails. It would feature much more than just 15 or so trail landmarks, but rather more than 200 of them! And it would offer players many new options, such as choices of different years in which to travel and different jumping-off towns.
The second year was when the real work on the program began. A core design team was formed consisting of Craig Copley (Producer), Steve Splinter (Lead Programmer), Charolyn Kapplinger (Lead Artist), and myself (Project Director, Lead Designer, Writer, and Historian). We would meet nearly every day to work out our formal design of the program. Soon we were ready to begin making it happen. Additional programmers and artists joined the project, as well as sound technicians, actors, musicians, and various other specialists. Altogether, more than a hundred people worked on Oregon Trail II.
Many of us put in long hours, working fifty hours a week or more for the better part of the year. But when it was all over, it was worth it. We knew we had created the biggest and best program (again, so far) in the history of MECC. Maybe even in the history of educational computing! Sales and awards seemed to confirm this. Oregon Trail II quickly became the best-selling educational software program in the country. Even now, more than a year after its release, it’s still in the sales “Top Ten.” Also the Software Publishers Association gave Oregon Trail II a Codie Award (our industry’s “Oscar”) as the Best Adventure/Role-Playing Software of 1995! (Opening Night was also awarded in the Best Home Creativity Software Program category at the same time.)
Selected Bibliography
More than two hundred primary and secondary sources were consulted in the extensive research that went into creating Oregon Trail® II and ensuring its historical and geographical accuracy. It would be impractical to try to list all of these sources here, but the following selected bibliography cites the books that proved most consistently useful and provided the greatest amount of information actually incorporated into the program. If you’re interested in learning more about the western trails, you may be able to find many of these books at your local library.
Primary (First-hand) Sources
Barton, Lois, ed. One Woman’s West: Recollections of the Oregon Trail and Settling the Northwest Country by Martha Gay Masterson, 1838-1916. Spencer Butte Press, 1986.
Brown, William Richard. An Authentic Wagon Train Journal of 1853 from Indiana to California. Barbara Wills, ed. Horseshoe Printing, 1985.
Clayton, William. The Latter-Day Saints’ Emigrants’ Guide. Edited by Stanley B. Kimball. Reprint (originally published 1847). The Patrice Press, 1983.
Dawson, Charles. Pioneer Tales of the Oregon Trail and of Jefferson County. Crane & Company, 1912.
Gordon, Mary, ed. Overland to California with the Pioneer Line: The Gold Rush Diary of Bernard J. Reid. The Patrice Press.
Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Volume 1: 1840-1849. The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1983.
Jefferson, T.H. Accompaniment to the Map of the Emigrant Road from Independence, Mo., to San Francisco, California. 1849; no other publication data.
Marcy, Randolph B. The Prairie Traveler: A Handbook for Overland Explorations.Reprint (originally published 1859). Applewood Books, no date.
Meeker, Ezra. Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail. World Book Company, 1924.
Parde, Charles Ross. Dreams to Dust: A Diary of the California Gold Rush, 1849-1850. James E. Davis, ed. University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
Parkman, Francis. The Oregon Trail. Reprint (originally published 1849). The New American Library, 1950.
Preuss, Charles. Topgraphical Map of the Road from Missouri to Oregon . . . in Seven Sections. E. Weber and Company, 1846.
Webber, Bert, ed. The Oregon and Applegate Trail Diary of Welborn Beeson in 1853.Webb Research Group, 1987.
Webber, Bert, ed. The Oregon and California Trail Diary of Jane Gould in 1862. Webb Research Group, 1987.
Webber, Bert, ed. The Oregon and Overland Trail Diary of Mary Louisa Black in 1865. Webb Research Group, 1989.
Webber, Bert, ed. The Oregon Trail Diary of James Akin, Jr., in 1852. Webb Research Group, 1989.
Webber, Bert, ed. The Oregon Trail Diary of Rev. Edward Evans Parrish in 1844.Webb Research Group, 1988.
Webber, Bert, ed. The Oregon Trail Diary of Twin Sisters, Cecelia Adams and Parthenia Blank in 1852. Webb Research Group, 1992.
Secondary Sources
Dary, David. Entrepreneurs of the Old West. University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
DeVoto, Bernard. Across the Wide Missouri. Reprint. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947.
Dodd, Lawrence. Narcissa Whitman on the Oregon Trail. Ye Galleon Press, 1985.
Dunlop, Richard. Great Trails of the West. Abington, 1971.
Fanselow, Julie. The Traveler’s Guide to the Oregon Trail. Falcon Press, 1992.
Federal Writers’ Project. The Oregon Trail: The Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean.Reprint (originally published 1939). Hastings House, 1972.
Fisher, Leonard E. The Oregon Trail. Holiday House, 1990.
Franzwa, Gregory M. Maps of the Oregon Trail. Third edition. The Patrice Press, 1990.
Franzwa, Gregory M. The Oregon Trail Revisited. Fourth edition. The Patrice Press, 1988.
Graydon, Charles K. Trail of the First Wagons Over the Sierra Nevada. The Patrice Press, 1986.
Haines, Aubrey L. Historic Sites Along the Oregon Trail. The Patrice Press, 1981.
Harris, E.W. The Overland Emigrant Trail to California. Nevada Emigrant Trail Marking Committee/Nevada Historical Society, 1986.
Hill, William E. The Oregon Trail, Yesterday and Today: A Brief History and Pictorial Journey Along the Wagon Tracks of Pioneers. Caxton Printers, 1987.
Holliday, J.S. The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience. Simon and Schuster, 1981.
Horan, James D. The Great American West: A Pictorial History from Coronado to the Last Frontier. Bonanza Books, 1959.
Hunt, Thomas H. and Robert V.H. Adams. Ghost Trails to California. American West Publishing Company, 1974.
Kimball, Stanley B. Historic Sites and Markers Along the Mormon and Other Great Western Trails. University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Lavender, David. The Overland Migrations: Settlers to Oregon, California, and Utah.U.S. National Park Service, 1980.
Lavender, David. Westward Vision: The Story of the Oregon Trail. University of Nebraska Press, 1963.
Mattes, Merrill. The Great Platte River Road. Nebraska State Historical Society, 1969.
Moffit, Gwen. Hard Road West: Alone on the California Trail. Viking Press, 1981.
Murphy, Dan and Gary Ladd. Oregon Trail: Voyage of Discovery-The Story Behind the Scenery. KC Publications, Inc., 1992.
National Park Service. Comprehensive Management and Use Plan: Oregon National Historic Trail-Selected Historic Sites and Cross-Country Segments. U.S. Department of the Interior, 1981.
Nicholas, Jonathan and Ron Cronin. On the Oregon Trail. Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, 1993.
Paden, Irene D. Prairie Schooner Detours. The Patrice Press, 1990.
Paden, Irene D. The Wake of the Prairie Schooner. McMillan and Company, 1947.
Richmond, Robert W. and Robert W. Mardock, eds. A Nation Moving West: Readings in the History of the American Frontier. University of Nebraska Press, 1966.
Rounds, Glen. The Prairie Schooner. Holiday House, Inc., 1968.
Rumer, Thomas A. The Wagon Trains of ’44: A Comparative View of the Individual Caravans in the Emigration of 1844 to Oregon. A.H. Clark, 1989.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Almanac of American History. Perigree Books, 1983.
Shellenberger, Robert. Wagons West: Trail Tales 1848. Heritage West Books, 1991.
Stein, R. Conrad. The Story of the Oregon Trail. Childrens Press, 1984.
Stewart, George Rippey. The California Trail. McGraw Hill Book Company, 1962.
Unruh, John D., Jr. The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60. University of Illinois Press, 1979.
VanSteenwyk, Elizabeth. The California Gold Rush: West with the Forty-niners. F. Watts, 1991.
Viola, Herman J. Exploring the West. Smithsonian Books, 1987.
Worcester, Don, ed. Pioneer Trails West, by the Western Writers of America. Caxton Printers, 1985.
Wright, Frank. The Pioneering Adventure in Nevada. Nevada Historical Society, no date.
The Oregon-California Trails Association
Finally, if you’re a really big fan of Oregon Trail II (and we certainly hope you are!) and you want to learn a lot more about the old western trails, you might consider joining the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA for short). The OCTA provides its members with two regular publications filled with information about the trails: a glossy quarterly magazine titled Overland Journal and a monthly newsletter called News from the Plains. The OCTA also sponsors an annual convention. For more information, contact the OCTA at P.O. Box 1019, Independence, MO 64051-0519 or visit them at 524 South Osage St, Independence, MO 64051.