5 ms·

He Created the Oregon Trail

82 points by benbreen 5y ago

beowulfey 5y ago
This article set me up to tell me how the Oregon Trail went from being the brainchild of three educators not interested in money to the hugely explosive software it became… but left me unfulfilled. What happened after he published the source code? Who decided to sell it for money??
- simonh 5y ago
  Don Rawitsch was hired by a state funded educational software group to develop a version of it for them. That, and it’s descendants, are the ones that became commercial.
- whoopdedo 5y ago
  The answer to that is in this article[1]. I remember it from a HN thread[2] earlier this year. [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-you-wound-playing-em-oregon-trailem-computer-class-180959851/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-you-wound-play... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27871196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27871196
JKCalhoun 5y ago
Source to Oregon Trail published in Creative Computing Magazine (May, 1978) here (page 134): https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputingbetterScan197805/page/n133/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputingbetterScan19780...
- AviationAtom 5y ago
  How might one go about running this original code on a modern day PC? An emulator of sorts?
  - ghostly_s 5y ago
    It's BASIC.
    - mark-r 5y ago
      BASIC has lots of different dialects. Anybody know which one this is, and what modern choices would be compatible with it?
      - whoopdedo 5y ago
        I don't see too many quirks in the listing, so most any classical BASIC variant should handle it. Like PC-BASIC[1], FreeBASIC[2], or the venerable GW-BASIC[3]. (The later I think you need to run in DOSBox though.) I did notice one unique keyword that should be easy to fix. 6200 PRINT "TYPE "; S$(56) 6210 B3 = CLK(0) 6220 INPUT C$ 6230 B1 = CLK(0) 6240 B1=((B1-B3)*3600)=(D9-1) I couldn't find 'CLK' in any of the BASICs I know of. Seems from context to be a time function. My guess is it returns number of seconds since system boot, or program start. [1] http://www.pc-basic.org/ http://www.pc-basic.org/ [2] https://www.freebasic.net/ https://www.freebasic.net/ [3] http://gw-basic.com/ http://gw-basic.com/
- kingcharles 5y ago
  Was about to Google it.. and.. you've done the work for me. Thank you! I'm confused by the code listing in the magazine. The Os are 0s and the 0s are Os for no good reason. Here is the code typed up: https://github.com/LiquidFox1776/oregon-trail-1978-basic https://github.com/LiquidFox1776/oregon-trail-1978-basic
  - mark-r 5y ago
    In the early days, the important thing was to be able to distinguish between zero and oh. There was no standard yet established for the best way to do that. At least it was better than typewriters, which didn't have zero or one keys at all - you had to use the upper-case O and lower-case L instead.
    - mikestew 5y ago
      Programmers had been putting slashes through zeros long before The Oregon Trail showed up, and my Mom might even have an old, hand-written IBM coding form lying around to prove it. I imagine in this case it is probably OCR gone awry that confused the zeros and Os. As one who originally took typing class on manual typewriters, I can tell you that every typewriter I’ve ever used had zeros and ones. If one were to tell me that there existed portable typewriters that did not have those characters, I might believe it.
      - mark-r 5y ago
        I never said slashed zeros were unknown, just that conventions hadn't settled yet and were far from universal. Sometime you got a dot in the middle instead of a slash. I don't know if OCR even existed back when this was published. If it did, it wasn't common. The manual typewriter I learned to type on did not have a zero or one.
    - kingcharles 5y ago
      I get that, but this is the opposite of what is normal. This is replacing Os with 0s which I've never seen outside of warez sites in my 40 years with computers.
xwdv 5y ago
It always amazes me how making money can be the furthest thing on people’s minds when they work on some cool innovative new project, to the point where they actively seem to go out of there way to not make any kind of money.
- danielvaughn 5y ago
  I envy it, because it relieves so much stress and other things that kill creativity. Unfortunately I can't just go without income, so the idea of a purely passion project isn't really in the cards for me unless it's a very small effort.
- AutumnCurtain 5y ago
  The lesson for me from modern mobile games and microtransaction models is that addictive gameplay is actually distinct from engaging gameplay and very few modern developers are focusing on the latter. It seems to be very nearly the exclusive domain of indies nowadays.
  - kubb 5y ago
    I can't think of a single mobile game that has any artistic value to me, but there are quite a few for the PC and consoles. A front-end for farming money and high quality entertainment should be considered different kinds of computer programs, and not lumped together as "games".
    - codetrotter 5y ago
      > I can't think of a single mobile game that has any artistic value to me Monument Valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley_(video_game)
    - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
      I guess I don't ascribe particularly high value to the category of games, I think even very simple games designed to take money from the player count. But I do agree on the mobile vs PC divide broadly in terms of what's on the market. I would actually cite Civ as a series that's still trying hard to do engaging things, in the form of constant but varied puzzles with intellectual complexity which reward planning and forethought.
adamddev1 5y ago
How many Canadians remember Cross Country Canada? It was a similar educational text-adventure where you learned about Canadian geography and commodities as you navigated your truck through greasy spoon dining shops and sketchy motels. We lived on it in the computer lab.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  In these times of supply chain woes, what better game to assign the kids? It’s not like they’re old enough to play the beer game.
- KMnO4 5y ago
  That game was full of really neat Easter eggs that were a lot of fun to find as a kid. If you “buckle up”d before driving and got into a crash it would cost less money to fix. You could exit your truck, lock the door, and throw away the keys to strand yourself. You could order room service from the motel. Looks like you can play it online through Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Crosscountry_Canada_1991 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Crosscountry_Canada_1991
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  There's also a USA version (the original) - I remember fiddling with the radio and oversleeping in said sketchy motels
  - shrubby 5y ago
    Sounds like the first Leisure Suit Larry to me.
mproud 5y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials > also known as the Oregon Trail Generation
tromac 5y ago
In Australia we had a similar game called Goldfields. Every kid loved it and playing it is one of my most fond memories of primary school. A fantastic way to teach history and economics at the same time. https://www.squakenet.com/game/goldfields/ https://www.squakenet.com/game/goldfields/ I wouldn’t be surprised if kids still play it today.
peter303 5y ago
Store-bought software was a co-revolution with home personal computers. Before then it was commercial oriented mainframe software. The mainframe computer manufacturers wrote some software; corporate users wrote some software; consulting software companies some for a rather small market. Software stores didnt really get started until 1976 or so. Oregon Trail was 5 years before that. MicroSoft was an early vendor with BASIC for the Altair, then other PCs in 1975. I attended the first West Coast Computer Faire in 1977 where there were a few software vendors including MicroSoft. Floppy disks were just getting started. Alternatives were punch tape, cassette tapes, and telephone modem downloads. The next big software revolution was downloadable self-installing internet apps, pioneered by Apple. In most cases this is just just 2 to 4 clicks of a mouse. No messy purchase of box in the store, copying multiple disks into the computer, and praying your license key was valid.
daltonlp 5y ago
A modern game that sparked a similar joy to Oregon Trail: https://scriptwelder.itch.io/waterworks https://scriptwelder.itch.io/waterworks

82 points by benbreen 5y ago

This article set me up to tell me how the Oregon Trail went from being the brainchild of three educators not interested in money to the hugely explosive software it became… but left me unfulfilled. What happened after he published the source code? Who decided to sell it for money??

simonh 5y ago
Don Rawitsch was hired by a state funded educational software group to develop a version of it for them. That, and it’s descendants, are the ones that became commercial.
whoopdedo 5y ago
The answer to that is in this article[1]. I remember it from a HN thread[2] earlier this year. [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-you-wound-playing-em-oregon-trailem-computer-class-180959851/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-you-wound-play... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27871196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27871196

JKCalhoun 5y ago

Source to Oregon Trail published in Creative Computing Magazine (May, 1978) here (page 134): https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputingbetterScan197805/page/n133/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputingbetterScan19780...

AviationAtom 5y ago
How might one go about running this original code on a modern day PC? An emulator of sorts?
- ghostly_s 5y ago
  It's BASIC.
  - mark-r 5y ago
    BASIC has lots of different dialects. Anybody know which one this is, and what modern choices would be compatible with it?
    - whoopdedo 5y ago
      I don't see too many quirks in the listing, so most any classical BASIC variant should handle it. Like PC-BASIC[1], FreeBASIC[2], or the venerable GW-BASIC[3]. (The later I think you need to run in DOSBox though.) I did notice one unique keyword that should be easy to fix. 6200 PRINT "TYPE "; S$(56) 6210 B3 = CLK(0) 6220 INPUT C$ 6230 B1 = CLK(0) 6240 B1=((B1-B3)*3600)=(D9-1) I couldn't find 'CLK' in any of the BASICs I know of. Seems from context to be a time function. My guess is it returns number of seconds since system boot, or program start. [1] http://www.pc-basic.org/ http://www.pc-basic.org/ [2] https://www.freebasic.net/ https://www.freebasic.net/ [3] http://gw-basic.com/ http://gw-basic.com/
kingcharles 5y ago
Was about to Google it.. and.. you've done the work for me. Thank you! I'm confused by the code listing in the magazine. The Os are 0s and the 0s are Os for no good reason. Here is the code typed up: https://github.com/LiquidFox1776/oregon-trail-1978-basic https://github.com/LiquidFox1776/oregon-trail-1978-basic
- mark-r 5y ago
  In the early days, the important thing was to be able to distinguish between zero and oh. There was no standard yet established for the best way to do that. At least it was better than typewriters, which didn't have zero or one keys at all - you had to use the upper-case O and lower-case L instead.
  - mikestew 5y ago
    Programmers had been putting slashes through zeros long before The Oregon Trail showed up, and my Mom might even have an old, hand-written IBM coding form lying around to prove it. I imagine in this case it is probably OCR gone awry that confused the zeros and Os. As one who originally took typing class on manual typewriters, I can tell you that every typewriter I’ve ever used had zeros and ones. If one were to tell me that there existed portable typewriters that did not have those characters, I might believe it.
    - mark-r 5y ago
      I never said slashed zeros were unknown, just that conventions hadn't settled yet and were far from universal. Sometime you got a dot in the middle instead of a slash. I don't know if OCR even existed back when this was published. If it did, it wasn't common. The manual typewriter I learned to type on did not have a zero or one.
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    I get that, but this is the opposite of what is normal. This is replacing Os with 0s which I've never seen outside of warez sites in my 40 years with computers.

xwdv 5y ago

It always amazes me how making money can be the furthest thing on people’s minds when they work on some cool innovative new project, to the point where they actively seem to go out of there way to not make any kind of money.

danielvaughn 5y ago
I envy it, because it relieves so much stress and other things that kill creativity. Unfortunately I can't just go without income, so the idea of a purely passion project isn't really in the cards for me unless it's a very small effort.
AutumnCurtain 5y ago
The lesson for me from modern mobile games and microtransaction models is that addictive gameplay is actually distinct from engaging gameplay and very few modern developers are focusing on the latter. It seems to be very nearly the exclusive domain of indies nowadays.
- kubb 5y ago
  I can't think of a single mobile game that has any artistic value to me, but there are quite a few for the PC and consoles. A front-end for farming money and high quality entertainment should be considered different kinds of computer programs, and not lumped together as "games".
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    > I can't think of a single mobile game that has any artistic value to me Monument Valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Valley_(video_game)
  - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
    I guess I don't ascribe particularly high value to the category of games, I think even very simple games designed to take money from the player count. But I do agree on the mobile vs PC divide broadly in terms of what's on the market. I would actually cite Civ as a series that's still trying hard to do engaging things, in the form of constant but varied puzzles with intellectual complexity which reward planning and forethought.

adamddev1 5y ago

How many Canadians remember Cross Country Canada? It was a similar educational text-adventure where you learned about Canadian geography and commodities as you navigated your truck through greasy spoon dining shops and sketchy motels. We lived on it in the computer lab.

selimthegrim 5y ago
In these times of supply chain woes, what better game to assign the kids? It’s not like they’re old enough to play the beer game.
KMnO4 5y ago
That game was full of really neat Easter eggs that were a lot of fun to find as a kid. If you “buckle up”d before driving and got into a crash it would cost less money to fix. You could exit your truck, lock the door, and throw away the keys to strand yourself. You could order room service from the motel. Looks like you can play it online through Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Crosscountry_Canada_1991 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Crosscountry_Canada_1991
selimthegrim 5y ago
There's also a USA version (the original) - I remember fiddling with the radio and oversleeping in said sketchy motels
- shrubby 5y ago
  Sounds like the first Leisure Suit Larry to me.

mproud 5y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials > also known as the Oregon Trail Generation

tromac 5y ago

In Australia we had a similar game called Goldfields. Every kid loved it and playing it is one of my most fond memories of primary school. A fantastic way to teach history and economics at the same time. https://www.squakenet.com/game/goldfields/ https://www.squakenet.com/game/goldfields/ I wouldn’t be surprised if kids still play it today.

peter303 5y ago

Store-bought software was a co-revolution with home personal computers. Before then it was commercial oriented mainframe software. The mainframe computer manufacturers wrote some software; corporate users wrote some software; consulting software companies some for a rather small market. Software stores didnt really get started until 1976 or so. Oregon Trail was 5 years before that. MicroSoft was an early vendor with BASIC for the Altair, then other PCs in 1975. I attended the first West Coast Computer Faire in 1977 where there were a few software vendors including MicroSoft. Floppy disks were just getting started. Alternatives were punch tape, cassette tapes, and telephone modem downloads. The next big software revolution was downloadable self-installing internet apps, pioneered by Apple. In most cases this is just just 2 to 4 clicks of a mouse. No messy purchase of box in the store, copying multiple disks into the computer, and praying your license key was valid.

daltonlp 5y ago

A modern game that sparked a similar joy to Oregon Trail: https://scriptwelder.itch.io/waterworks https://scriptwelder.itch.io/waterworks